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Security advisories

Spectre and Meltdown Follow-up

February 26, 2019 | 1 MIN READ

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Intel patches for the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities have been attributed with causing loss of data or corruption of data in certain cases. Intel is advising customers to refrain from updating their firmware until full patch testing is complete. Windows has released an out of band patch (KB4078130) that keeps protection for vulnerability variants 1 (CVE-2017-5753) and 3 (CVE-2017-5754),while removing the problematic fix for variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715) [1].

AMD processors are not affected by Meltdown. Early patches for AMD devices against Spectre caused an error that left some AMD devices unbootable. The issue has been fixed and patches are available.

Issues with Microsoft’s security updates and Antivirus compatibility were reported early on. Microsoft will not deliver Spectre and Meltdown patches unless the AV vendor has added a specific registry key. Windows Defender Antivirus, System Center Endpoint Protection, and Microsoft Security Essentials are all patch compatible.

Performance issues relating to security patches vary depending on the OS version and the age of the machine. At this time it does not appear that either the Meltdown or Spectre vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild. Opportunistic threat actors have attempted to capitalize on the confusion surrounding these vulnerabilities by inserting malware into fake non-vendor patches [2].

What we’re doing about it

What you should do about it

Additional Information

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4078130/update-to-disable-mitigation-against-spectre-variant-2

[2] https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2018/01/fake-spectre-and-meltdown-patch-pushes-smoke-loader/

[3] https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4078130

[4] https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/01/microcode-update-guidance.pdf

[5] https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update

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