This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of employ.

Intel Xeon E7 Ivy Bridge-EX die (15 core)

Intel has released a new set of updates for the Meltdown and Spectre bugs that nosotros first learned nigh in early January. It's critically important to patch and update systems to avert exposure to these flaws.

Intel's strategy has been to fix its newest systems first, followed by the earlier models. The ready rollout hasn't been polish; Intel had to pull back an entire set up of updates and fixes at one point considering they caused frequent reboot issues. Those problems have been resolved to the best of our noesis, and anyone with an Intel CPU from whatever generation should be updating as soon equally possible.

Intel has been steadily updating its microcode document as new fixes scroll out. This time around, nosotros've got patches for the Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge families, plus diverse server variants of both chips, too as some Haswell cores that weren't previously covered. The chips that withal need to be patched are all older than Sandy Bridge, including Intel's 32nm Westmere parts (the first six-cadre CPUs based on Nehalem), the quad-cadre Nehalem architecture (Bloomfield, Lynnfield), and several mobile 32nm chips like Arrandale and Clarkdale.

Microcode-Update

In addition to patching upwards the entire Nehalem family tree, Intel will likewise exist delivering patches for some older Cadre 2 Quad and Cadre 2 Duo processors, though these patches are still in the early stages of production. The company has taken heat for how it handled the unveil and rollout, but at least as far equally the technical side of things, Intel seems to have the problem well in-hand with fixes dropping on a regular basis.

That'due south a skillful thing, seeing as Spectre can be used to pause the protections Intel offers with SGX (Software Baby-sit Extensions). This latest research newspaper doesn't identify a new attack in improver to the 2 Spectre variants, it just ("just") illustrates how those two flaws can be used to crack into other secure repositories to requite would-be thieves access to yet more information. That'southward function of what makes Spectre and Meltdown serious. They're not just flaws in and of themselves; they're flaws that tin be exploited to exfiltrate data out of other supposedly secure repositories.

If your motherboard manufacturer hasn't issued any updates for your arrangement, continue an eye on Windows Update. Microsoft has been delivering microcode updates for Intel systems, including through KB4090007. That update merely runs through the terminate of February; it'southward not articulate if MS will create a new update to patch upwards Haswell and previous processors, or if it'll continue the same KB number simply coil up the latest changes. The operation bear upon of these patches on Sandy and Ivy Span nevertheless hasn't been tested; newer CPUs have seen small-scale declines on the order of 5-7 per centum, with a few outliers as high as 13 percent