Intel Security Issue Update: Progress Continues on Firmware Updates

Hi,
@johngalt :

as well as my previous process, Core 2 Quad 6600....

Tu quoque ?
I also have one of these cpus in a Dell Optiplex 745. Me thinks the only way to keep it secure will be by not using it.....

Intel yes, vendors... on hardware older than 2 years though?

I just patched a 4 year old Haswell yesterday. So there's hope.



Cheers,

Hi,

as I really don't have the space for it either), so all it does now is gather dust.

LOL. Same here and I can add a Vista era Acer laptop to the list and I should put the Haswell Fujitsu on sale as well as the Skylake from last year if I don't want to lose too much $ on these.

Guess I may just as well rip the old Dell apart and put the cpu, dram and psu on ebay..... Nice paperweight for now though...........

Oh, Inspectre V 6.0 is out in case someone would like to stay current on that.

Cheers,

EdTittel said:

Happy to see my old trusty Lenovo units, T520 and X220 Tablet, show up recently on the company's list of platforms for which microcode patches are planned. For those who also own Lenovo devices, here's the link to their list of planned patches, still forthcoming: Reading Privileged Memory with a Side Channel. Still no word from Asrock, though.
HTH,
--Ed--

ASRock

Cr00zng said:

I don't believe that Microsoft will ever get to the point of pushing out BIOS/EUFI updates. Nor do they need to...

As far as I know...

Windows has the ability to warm patch microcode on boot using the mcupdate_GenuineIntel.dll and mcupdate_AuthenticAMD.dll drivers (located at C:\Windows\System32) on boot, for Intel and AMD cpu's respectively. On my system the current versions are:

Attachment 176356

These drivers are simple blocks of microcode and cpu identifying information - contain the latest microcode for the system cpu during boot. Windows loads the microcode from these drivers instead, overwriting the microcode that is included with the firmware, without being committed to flash. This takes place prior to the Windows initialization, so, seemingly there's no partial exposure issues.

The draw back of having the latest microcode in the driver is that, at the time of reboot the latest microcode is lost. While for most people, this is not an issue; however, should one re-install Windows (starting fresh), the microcode maybe vulnerable to Spectre and other exploits, if and when the the BIOS/EUFI has not been updated that includes microcode that not vulnerable. Once the reinstalled Windows updated to the latest patches, it may have the latest microcode in the driver and no longer vulnerable. Provided Intel gets their act together...

This is not a specific process that exists in Windows only, other operating systems, like Linux, MacOS, etc., act pretty much the same way on the x86 system with BIOS/UFI/EUFI firmware. One could make the argument that other operating system have been doing this longer than Windows...

Personally, I don't see the need for updating the BIOS/EUFI with the latest operating systems. If the motherboard manufacturers have the fixed microcode for Intel/AMD CPUs, so will Microsoft and they will push it out with the next update. Relax people...

This sounds positive, so maybe I don't need to update the BIOS for my Skylake machine? It's something I'd much rather avoid. I've done it before but it's not a task taken lightly and I stand by the fact that 99.9% of the windows user base will not be updating their BIOS, most of them won't even know it exists. In my family I'm the only one aware of the BIOS and even about this threat. MS needs to psuh all that needs to be done through windows update to ensure the issue is covered as much as possible among it's user base

Hi,
I'd add and are these vulnerabilities like hitting the lottery getting exploited by one
Personally it seems more of an exaggeration than anything.

Hi,
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