Meltdown and Spectre have been two of the decade’s most talked about security vulnerabilities. There’s been so much news around these two security flaws, it’s almost getting impossible to keep track of all the latest updates. Intel, as one of the world’s largest chip makers, has been at the centre of all these updates. The company issued the first set of functional firmware updates for its affected systems last month.
And today, Microsoft is helping Intel roll out these firmware updates to their customers. Redmond has started deploying the functional microcode updates from Intel to Windows 10 Fall Creators Update machines with Skylake processors through the Microsoft Update Catalog today. It’s important to note that these updates aren’t automatically available via Windows Update and users would need to manually update their systems for now. Plus, the company is only issuing fixes for Skylake systems running the latest version of Windows 10, though it says it will continue to release patches for other systems as they become available from Intel.
Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!
"*" indicates required fields
“We continue to work with industry partners on further mitigations and tools to help protect against the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. As always, we emphasize the importance of keeping your devices up to date for both Windows security and feature updates. Windows 10 version 1709, the Fall Creators Update, is the most secure version of Windows and is fully available for all devices,” the company said in a blog post.
Stooks
<p>My prediction is this won't end well.</p><p><br></p><p>I am glad my only Windows PC is a gaming desktop with a Ryzen/AMD chipset. If AMD goes this route it will be a Linux box real quick.</p>