Intel’s recently released patches to protect computers against the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities not only lower performance, but can also cause other problems, such as unexpected reboots. Intel today posted a statement about the issues on its website.
Intel’s recently released patches to protect computers against the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities not only lower system performance, but can also cause other problems, such as too frequent reboots. Intel today posted a statement about the issues on its website.
Earlier this month the chip giant promised to patch the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities in its processors with software updates. After the first patches were released, the company received various complaints of users who report frequent reboots of their system. Especially systems powered by a Broadwell or Haswell generation processor suffer from the bug.
The company writes its working on an update. If an update for the processor firmware is required then they will be distributed through the regular update channels.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Intel reportedly advised users to hold off installing the updates. The new bugs would not be related to security issues and especially affect the chip giant’s somewhat older CPUs. Intel does recommend to install software updates of computer vendors and other companies.
Last week the vulnerabilities Meltdown and Spectre were disclosed. Through the Meltdown vulnerability, hackers can attack the RAM memory of computers with Intel chips to e.g. obtain passwords. The Spectre vulnerability affects CPUs from AMD, ARM and Intel, but it harder to abuse.
