That's not exactly convenient for people trying to patch older hardware. However, Microsoft has made clear that if you don't apply these updates, you will not be able to receive any more security patches in the future. If Windows Update doesn't fetch the updates for your machine, then you're supposed to assume that your AV software might be incompatible. In its infinite wisdom, Microsoft has not said which AV products are and aren't compatible. Without that Registry key, the update won't even download. Microsoft has asked antivirus makers to include a change to the Windows Registry with their updates to certify that the software is compatible. Negative interactions could cause a "stop" error - i.e., a Blue Screen of Death. 3.īut hold on! It turns out that the patches are incompatible with many antivirus products. Microsoft: Fixes for both the Meltdown and Spectre-related flaws on Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 were pushed out Jan. Now that that's over, the most important thing you can do to protect yourself against Meltdown and Spectre attacks is to apply software and firmware patches, which are still rolling out. Microsoft has halted pushing out updates to those chips for now.Ħ) There have been reports that the Meltdown patch was referred to in developer circles as "Forcefully Unmap Complete Kernel With Interrupt Trampolines," or F***WIT. 9 that while Intel CPUs made since 2016 were minimally affected, PCs with chipsets made in 2015 and earlier would see more significant slowdowns.ĥ) There have been reports that applying the Windows update might brick computers with older AMD CPUs. What will slow down are processes that lean heavily on the kernel, such as, well, artificial performance tests. We had thought that was mostly unfounded, as processes that occur mainly within applications or lean heavily on graphics cards - such as gaming - should not be affected. The flaws affect some AMD and many ARM chips as well as most Intel chips.Ĥ) There have been reports that applying these fixes will greatly slow down your machine. Unfortunately, these flaws are also harder to fix, and may force chip redesigns in the future. Again, your secrets are no longer safe, but the Spectre attack related to these flaws is harder to pull off than the Meltdown attack. The other two flaws are related and let user-based applications read each other's memory. Your secrets - passwords, credit-card numbers, sensitive documents - are no longer safe. The Meltdown attack that exploits this flaw makes it possible for user-based applications to read kernel memory, and thus any protected process on the machine. Also affected is ARM Cortex-A75 chipset, which will be used in the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 system-on-a-chip for the next generation Android flagship phones. Meltdown also affects Apple's A7-through-A11 ("Bionic") line of mobile systems-on-a-chip used on the last few years of iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches. Unfortunately, that includes all Intel CPUs made since 1995, except for Atom chips before 2013 and Itanium chips. MORE: How to Protect Your Identity, Personal Data and Propertyģ) Of the three flaws, the first one affects only Intel chips, Apple mobile chips and at least one ARM chip. (Microsoft's Edge and Internet Explorer 11 browsers should be safe to use after you apply last week's Windows update, and the current version of Firefox will automatically update itself.) Antivirus software may be able to block the payloads of some JavaScript-based attacks, but the JavaScript implementation in modern browsers will need to be updated to prevent all Spectre attacks. The Spectre attacks can work both locally and via a malicious JavaScript in a web browser, which is technically local but provides a much bigger attack surface.
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