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A lot of noise on the internet, after Intel confirm that chips have a bug:
https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-responds-to-security-research-findings/
This post is to bring some light on this.
1- Intel says is not only their chips affected
2- PCID (Process-Context Identifiers), a chip feature, has a bug that allow apps (malware) to read data
3- Process-context identifiers (PCIDs) are a facility by which a logical processor may cache information for multiple linear-address spaces. The processor may retain cached information when software switches to a different linear address space with a different PCID.
4- Macintosh and Linux OS are also affected.
Rumors:
1- If you have Haswell (4th-gen) or newer, PCID (Process-Context Identifiers) is enabled.
2- After apply the patch, performance is going to be slower on newer CPU. Around 5 to 10%.
2- Still if you have older CPU, performance will be affected worse than newer CPUs.
3- To be affected you must have a OS 64 bits. {Correction: 32bits has vulnerability, MS still working on this)
Just as I'm writing this, Linus Torvalds and his team are working on this too:
https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/1/2/703
https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20180102222354.qikjmf7dvnjgbkxe%40alap3.anarazel.de
Can we get a word from Microsoft?
For windows, What patch is going to address this? (Update: Patch links and KB are listed on postings)
Is that is going to be on the Montly Rollup and/or Security only patches? (Update: See the links posted)
If performance is going to suffer, can we be able to uninstall such patch? (Update: Microsoft published a document about it, See the links posted)
Please, any info will be appreciated.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Wow they need to figure this out and get these systems patched. The longer it takes the more at risk everyone is. Hackers work pretty fast. I seen where a Bios update would be available for my acer laptop at the end of March but maybe now that will be moved forward .I have it sitting in a faraday cage right now because it has the AMT.
Stop deployment if you fall into those hardware specs and wait for another firmware update is essentially what I got from it as well. The good news is it sounds like they're close to a firmware release, which means a new BIOS update for the manufacturers. The bad news is, there's a lot of CPUs effected:
The following Intel-based platforms are impacted by this issue. Intel may modify this list at a later time. Please check with your system vendor or equipment manufacturer for more information regarding updates for your system.
And just when we thought that we were seeing the end of this, Intel posted this:
Intel Security Issue Update: Addressing Reboot Issues
Broadwell and Haswell platforms send ugly reboots when firmware updates are applied.
And give an update just yesterday:
Root Cause of Reboot Issue Identified; Updated Guidance for Customers and Partners
that basically says "stop deployment".
Just great!.
The list of the new updates from Microsoft:
Windows Server 2016 – KB4057142
Windows Server 2012 R2 – KB4057401
Windows Server 2012 – KB4057402
Windows 10 1709 – KB4073290
Windows 10 1703 – KB4057144
Windows 10 1607 – KB4057142
Windows 8.1 – KB4057401
That fix several issues, specially the issues with Symantec AV that was holding up the patches.
An interesting letter from a congressman to Intel and others about Meltdown and Spectre. Heats on.
