San Francisco, Mar 7 (IANS): Researchers have discovered a major new security flaw inside processors made by US multinational corporation and chip making giant Intel that could defeat hardware-based encryption and DRM protections.

According to security company Positive Technologies, the security bug could break apart a chain of trust for important technology like silicon-based encryption, hardware authentication and modern DRM protections.

Virtually all Intel chips released in the past five years contain an unfixable flaw that may allow sophisticated attackers to defeat a host of security measures built into the silicon.

While Intel has issued patches to lessen the damage of exploits and make them harder, security firm Positive Technologies said the mitigations may not be enough to fully protect systems, ARS Technica reported on Friday.

The security vulnerability discovered applies to machines with Intel chips built over the last five years or so.

Intel said that it was notified of the vulnerabilities and released mitigations in May 2019 to be incorporated into firmware updates for motherboards and computer systems.