W. European PC sales are up by 17.5% Y-o-Y in Q1 2020, Context reports, as a March 2020 surge in demand for remote-working hardware further pushed PC growth. Said surge comes through, of course, the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the analyst, PC sales are up by 7.6% Y-o-Y in January, 13.2% Y-o-Y in February and 31.8% Y-o-Y in March. Such numbers show when stricter measures to contain the spread of the virus across Europe lead to a "dramatic" increase in remote working. The full quarter sees a greater increase in business-targeted products, as sales for the segment are up by 22.8% Y-o-Y, compared to the 9.5% Y-o-Y growth of consumer-targeted PCs.
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According to the report, "Gigabyte Technology, Micro-Star International (MSI), Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), TUL and Chaintech have all decided to be absent from the tradeshow." The story mentions just one company, Asus, with current plans to participate in the event. Meanwhile the biggest names in the PC industry, namely AMD, Intel and Nvidia, are "unlikely" to appear at the show, a decision possibly leading to any number of product announcement delays.
The flaw resides in essentially all Thunderbolt-enabled Windows or Linux PCs manufactured before 2019, and allows for what the security industry dubs an "evil maid attack." This involves the potential attacker being alone with the PC (for example, in a hotel room), and simply requires opening the case of the target laptop with a screwdriver. Once the machine is open, the attacker simply needs to momentarily attach a device, reprogram the firmware and reattach the backplate for full access to the laptop. The operation, Ruytenberg says, takes all of 5 minutes.
