Intel releases stable Specter patches for Skylake and is working on beta patches

Intel has released stable patches for the second variant of Specter. The patches are only available for Skylake processors so far, but Intel assures that patches for other processors will follow in the coming days.

The chipmaker reports: “Earlier this week, we distributed production versions of microcode updates for several Skylake platforms to our OEM customers and partners, and we expect to do the same for other platforms in the coming days.” Intel will also continue to work on beta microcode for other CPU generations, giving partners and customers “the opportunity to conduct extensive testing before the code is ready for production.” The company notes that in most cases, the updates will be made available through firmware updates.

Intel was experiencing issues with previous updates it released for the second variant of Specter. At first, these seemed to only occur on Haswell and Broadwell chips, but later on, modern generations were also found to be affected by unexpected reboots. Intel then warned its customers and partners not to perform updates based on microcode released up to that point, after which several manufacturers withdrew their updates. Microsoft later did the same.

Despite the issues, Intel says in its current post that it “cannot emphasize enough the importance of performing updates.” It refers to research that states that people often wait too long to perform updates after they are available. Intel also points to the phenomenon that derivatives of the original exploit become available after the publication of a vulnerability. It expresses the expectation that this will be no different with Meltdown and Specter.