Will your Intel Core 2 Duo CPU be used as an attack vector?

I missed this in the original theads, but I recently came across an email from Theo de Raadt in which he describes a whole slew of vulnerabilities within the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU that may be exploitable. Irregardless of the operating system. You can read the Intel errata here.) UPDATE: looks like Intel pulled their errata from the original link.

The interesting quote in his email that shocked me was this:

"These processors are buggy as hell, and some of these bugs don't just cause development/debugging problems, but will *ASSUREDLY* be exploitable from userland code."

He goes on to say:

At this time, I cannot recommend purchase of any machines based on the Intel Core 2 until these issues are dealt with (which I suspect will take more than a year). Intel must be come more transparent.

Strong words from one of the authors of OpenBSD and a fellow security professional.

Now I have no idea what the validity is to his claims, but it does offer reflection for us all. Theo mentions that most of the errors were most likely to cause system crashes, but that some might be exploited to create sophisticated attacks. On the flip side, people like Linux Torvalds have responded to his claims stating that they are "totally insignificant".

Time will tell if Theo is right. Linus has mentioned that many bugs already have workaround or patches in the works, but when was the last time YOU patched your CPU? Ya, me neither.