Intel is rolling out more microcode updates to help protect computers using its latest chips from Spectre-related attacks.
Earlier this month the company released a stable update for PCs with 6th-gen Intel Core “Skylake” processors. Now updates are also available for 7th-gen “Kaby Lake” chips and 8th-gen “Coffee Lake” and “Kaby Lake Refresh” processors.
Intel actually released microcode updates for all of these platforms earlier this year but pulled the plug on those software patches after they were shown to cause computers to crash under some conditions.
The new updates should be more stable. But it’s not like you can go to the Intel website to download and install them yourself. You’ll most likely need to wait for your PC maker to offer an update for your laptop, desktop, or motherboard before you can install the latest firmware with the patches applied.
If you haven’t received an update yet and you’re wondering whether it’s Intel or your PC maker that’s dragging their feet, you can check out the latest Intel Microcode Update Guidance document (PDF) and see if the chip maker has released an update for your processor yet. What you want to see is a green line with the word “production” in the status column.
In other news, it looks like there’s also now a Spectre V2 mitigation for some affected processors based on MIPS architecture.
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