Intel outlines plans for Meltdown and Spectre fixes, microcode for older chips
Microcodes for Sandy Bridge and newer are now available. Continue reading Intel outlines plans for Meltdown and Spectre fixes, microcode for older chips
Category Archives: microcode
Intel’s latest set of Spectre microcode fixes is coming to a Windows update
Windows users will no longer be beholden to their motherboard makers. Continue reading Intel’s latest set of Spectre microcode fixes is coming to a Windows update
Intel’s slow progress towards microcode updates
Simon Sharwood for The Register: Intel adopts Orwellian irony with call for fast Meltdown-Spectre action after slow patch delivery – For now, have some code that won’t crash Skylakes and stay close to your Telescreens. He observes… Continue reading Intel’s slow progress towards microcode updates
New Windows patch disables Intel’s bad Spectre microcode fix
Registry keys can also be used to selectively enable or disable the microcode fix. Continue reading New Windows patch disables Intel’s bad Spectre microcode fix
34C3: Hacking into a CPU’s Microcode
Inside every modern CPU since the Intel Pentium fdiv bug, assembly instructions aren’t a one-to-one mapping to what the CPU actually does. Inside the CPU, there is a decoder that turns assembly into even more primitive instructions that are fed into the CPU’s internal scheduler and pipeline. The code that drives the decoder is the CPU’s microcode, and it lives in ROM that’s normally inaccessible. But microcode patches have been deployed in the past to fix up CPU hardware bugs, so it’s certainly writeable. That’s practically an invitation, right? At least a group from the Ruhr University Bochum took …read more
