This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.
(Photo: Intel)Intel has been cranking out new software and hardware for as long as the company has existed, but it hasn’t maintained a central facility for dedicated security tests on its older hardware. That all changed in 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal, as the company began collecting as much “legacy” hardware as it could get its hands on, and then started squirreling it away in an undisclosed location in Costa Rica, The reason is simple: so they can test new software and hardware on older systems, to make sure there’s no security issues.
For example, let’s say Intel releases a new piece of software, or a driver, which happens regularly. Will there be any security issues running it on a Haswell CPU, circa 2013? Or Sandy Bridge, on a Windows 7 system? These are the types of scenarios the company realized it needed to be testing, as customers can take many years to upgrade to the latest version of a CPU or platform, and the company had to be sure it’s newest software didn’t allow security holes when deployed on legacy systems. Plus, nobody wants to be testing for security flaws on users’ systems “in the wild” or a corporate environment, where data loss could be a problem. This is the type of work that’s best done in a lab.
According to the Intel, planning first began in 2018, which allowed for the creation of the Long-Term Retention Lab, which went into operation in the second half of 2019. In its nascent stage, its stockpile of older hardware was so lacking the company had to turn to eBay to find some parts, such as Sandy Bridge CPUs. However, after ramping up, the 14,000 square foot warehouse now holds more than 3,000 items, including both software and hardware, going back about 10 years or so. Engineers working in the facility are able to assemble specific hardware and software combos for Intel employees to test remotely, anywhere in the world. Intel notes that a lot of the testing requests it receives are in response to flaws submitted by outside researchers who participate in the company’s bug bounty program. With a ticket in-hand for a suspected flaw, an engineer can grab an 8-year old motherboard and CPU off the shelf, install a specific BIOS and version of Windows on it, and try to duplicate the issue.
It’s not surprising that this initiative dates back to mid-2018. Meltdown and …….