Microcode updates are intended to address Spectre vulnerabilities without causing the reboot issues that plagued previous releases.
Microcode updates are intended to address Spectre vulnerabilities without causing the reboot issues that plagued previous releases.
Owners of Intel Skylake, Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake CPUs can breath a slight sigh of relief this week as finalised updates to address Spectre vulnerabilities have now been released. The original microcode updates – rolled out in early January – caused unpredictable reboot issues in a number of systems in which it was deployed; this latest patch is should solve that particular problem while adding additional protection against Spectre.
These updates also apply to Intel’s Core X processor family (i.e. enthusiast Skylake-X CPUs) as well as Xeon Scalable and Xeon D enterprise solutions. The vast majority of Intel’s current and most CPUs releases should now be covered by patches to address Meltdown and Spectre, although additional measures can be taken to further harden systems against Spectre specifically.
As far as consumers go, the microcode should be deployed via OEM motherboard firmware updates, so check on your manufacturer of choice in the coming days for a speedy fix.
Currently no additional information has been released regarding updates to older Intel products which also suffer from this specific reboot issue.
SOURCE: Intel Newswire
