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Microsoft disables Intel’s buggy Spectre patch with Windows update

By Koh Wanzi - on 30 Jan 2018, 3:21pm

Microsoft disables Intel’s buggy Spectre patch with Windows update

Microsoft has issued its second off-schedule security update for the month, in order to deal with the issues arising from Intel’s flawed Spectre firmware update.

Intel admitted last week that its updates were buggy, causing some systems to spontaneously reboot. More tellingly, its latest financial results included a warning that the updates could potentially cause data loss or corruption.

The chipmaker’s official recommendation to OEMs and customers is to simply hold off on updating their firmware until a proper fix is in place, but Microsoft has proactively issued an update to disable the fix for Spectre variant 2.  

Microsoft says its new out-of-band patch for Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 prevents the reboots from happening, but you’ll need to download it manually as it’s being issued as part of the Windows Update catalog.

That said, systems experiencing issues from Intel’s firmware updates should probably apply the patch. In addition, Microsoft is also releasing a new registry key setting for affected devices, which will allow IT administrators to manually enable or disable the Spectre variant 2 fixes.

In the meantime, Intel says it’s already identified the cause of the unexpected reboots on its Broadwell and Haswell processors, and is working on an update that will finally patch the vulnerabilities without the reboots and data loss.

Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Skylake, and Kaby Lake chips are also afflicted to a certain extent, and Intel is working on fixes for those processors too.

Looking beyond these patches, Intel is planning new chips that are no longer vulnerable this year, so the updates are really just a stop-gap measure.

Source: Microsoft

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