Updated Firmware Available for 6th, 7th and 8th Gen. Intel Processors

[Brink]

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been developing and validating updated microcode solutions to protect Intel customers against the security exploits disclosed by Google Project Zero. This effort has included extensive testing by customers and industry partners to ensure the updated versions are ready for production. On behalf of all of Intel, I thank each and every one of our customers and partners for their hard work and partnership throughout this process.

More: Security Exploits and Intel Products (Press Kit) | Security Research Findings (Intel.com)

Based on these efforts, we have now released production microcode updates to our OEM customers and partners for Kaby Lake- and Coffee Lake-based platforms, plus additional Skylake-based platforms. This represents our 6th, 7th and 8th Generation Intel® Core™ product lines as well as our latest Intel® Core™ X-series processor family. It also includes our recently announced Intel® Xeon® Scalable and Intel® Xeon® D processors for data center systems.

The new microcode will be made available in most cases through OEM firmware updates. I continue to encourage people to always keep their systems up-to-date. There is also a comprehensive schedule and current status for planned microcode updates available online.

We are mindful of the fact that, in some cases, there are multiple mitigation techniques available that may provide protection against these exploits. This includes “Retpoline,” a Google-developed mitigation technique for Variant 2. For those interested in more information on Retpoline and how it works, we recently published a new white paper. Google has also posted information about Retpoline.

I look forward to sharing additional updates soon. Again, I extend my sincere appreciation to all Intel customers and industry partners for their ongoing support.

Navin Shenoy
Executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group at Intel Corporation

Source: https://newsroom.intel.com/news/latest-intel-security-news-updated-firmware-available/

 

[mjf]

One of my PC builds has an i5 4590 and ASUS motherboard. It's about 2 years old. The CPU is 4th gen. Who throws out a high quality 2 year old PC. The exploitation test tool says it may be vulnerable.
So apparently no support for 4th or 5th gen CPUs.
I also wonder if the OEM distribution includes motherboard manufacturers or just complete OEM system builds.

 

[Brds7t7]

One of my PC builds has an i5 4590 and ASUS motherboard. It's about 2 years old. The CPU is 4th gen. Who throws out a high quality 2 year old PC. The exploitation test tool says it may be vulnerable.
So apparently no support for 4th or 5th gen CPUs.
I also wonder if the OEM distribution includes motherboard manufacturers or just complete OEM system builds.

Mjf, I had read that Intel was going to push out updated patches to Haswell processors, they're probably just concentrating on getting updated patches on the newer generation processors first.

As for OEM's - that's a different story! I have a Z97 board from Gigabyte and have seen zero information from them about patching their Z97 boards. They've only mentioned as far back as X99. It could be that they're just concentrating on the newer processors for now.

I'm living in hope anyway!