CPU Security Flaw: All You Need To Know About Spectre And Meltdown

[jankerson]

Why are we so surprised and outraged that devices that derive from a base that was never designed with security in mind are not perfectly free of security flaws? If the market demands unbreachable security, perhaps chipmakers will start designing security-based architectures and in five or ten years we can have hardware without security flaws.

My personal opinion, at this point, is that the reaction to this revelation is way overblown.

As most things tend to be way overblown.

 

[JoeMomma]

InSpectre says I need to update my Z97 BIOS. My BIOS has been up to date since 2016. The update I need hasn't been written yet and I doubt it ever will.
They will probably say ' buy a new PC and you get the update'.

 

[Adu2016]

What is the best available defense for these 2 major flaws ?
And which anti-malware package is the best ?

 

[thuck777]

The "cure" is far worse than the "disease" here, as the latter is not even being exploited in the wild. Moreover, I am not willing to accept the performance hits on older systems, upon which I still rely daily. It is unacceptable for Intel, Microsoft, etc., to push these patches and BIOS updates without a) the ability for end users to say "no," and furthermore, to uninstall / reverse these updates if they are problematic. This is crap, and in the end, it only forces individuals and businesses to fork out large sums for new systems prematurely. All this is indeed worthy of class action suits, and I hope Intel, AMD, Microsoft, etc., pay heavily for their underhanded shenanigans, which should have never occurred in the first place, IMO.

 

[leoscott]

I have an I7-4790. My MB manufacturer has a BIOS update that says "Update Haswell CPU Microcode to revision 24 and Broadwell CPU Microcode to revision 1D." Does that include Intel's microcode fix for Spectre?

 

[rgd1101]

I have an I7-4790. My MB manufacturer has a BIOS update that says "Update Haswell CPU Microcode to revision 24 and Broadwell CPU Microcode to revision 1D." Does that include Intel's microcode fix for Spectre?

if it came out within the last 3 months or so. yes

 

[leoscott]

Thanks for posting the link to Gibson. He is great. I have used his software before but had forgotten about him. I used InSpectre to check all my PCs and updated the 3 that had available BIOS update.

 

[corndog1836]

well ASUS SAID NO BIOS UPDATE!!!!


Hello Jerome Cornish,

 

[corndog1836]

Here is ASUS response to bios update..


Hello Jerome Cornish,

Thank you for responding to Asus Product Support, this is Olga O. again and I apologize if there will be no BIOS update for the Spectre 2 issue with your motherboard. I know how important it is to solve the issue as soon as possible. Let me further assist you.

Upon checking the BIOS version version 3003 that was released from 2015/11/23.

Unfortunately, our software engineers will no longer release any BIOS updates.

If you have any questions or comments, you can simply reply to this email to contact us again. Thank you for choosing ASUS Products and Services.

Please take note of your case number for future reference N1803152533.

Regards,
Olga O.
ASUS Product Support

http://www.asus.com/us/support/

 

[JamesSneed]

Did anyone notice there is a new Intel vulnerability called BranchScope. This is similar to Spectre.

 

[corndog1836]

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?99372-Rampage-V-Extreme-Instructions-for-updating-the-BIOS-file-CPU-microcode&p=700633#post700633


people are starting to edit their own bios . i have been successful
read this thread.

DO NOT ATTEMPT IF YOU SKILLS ARE NOT UP TO PAR!!!!!!!!!

 

[corndog1836]

Here is an update

Asus has released by bios 3503 for z97 motherboards. I have installed it for my Maximus formula VII motherboard. It is a stable bios and I have since tested for Spectre variant 2 with the inspectre program and it works