New Spectre and Meltdown patches cause reboot issues

Johannesburg - New patches to fixes against security vulnerabilities from Spectre and Meltdown have been reported to cause system rebooting issues on computers around the world. 

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said the company received reports from some customers of higher system reboots after applying firmware updates. 

“These systems are running Intel Broadwell and Haswell CPUs for both client and data centre. We are working quickly with these customers to understand, diagnose and address this reboot issue,” he said in an update on the Intel website. 

Broadwell and Haswell are microarchitecture released in computers between 2013 and 2014. 

“If this requires a revised firmware update from Intel, we will distribute that update through the normal channels. We are also working directly with data centre customers to discuss the issue,” Krzanich added. 

He said in his Security-First Pledge that Intel is committed to transparency in reporting progress in handling the Google Project Zero exploits.

Intel added that end-users should continue to apply updates recommended by their system and operating system providers.

• READ: Updating software crucial to ward off Meltdown and Spectre

Last week, amid the controversy highlighted by the security exploits, Fin24 reported that updating software is crucial to protect PCs and some smartphones against security vulnerabilities from Spectre and Meltdown.

Spectre and Meltdown are two security flaws which have been erroneously reported as being unique to products from processor manufacturing company Intel. Intel, AMD and ARM processors are made vulnerable to viruses that could steal data through the security flaw.

In early December Intel began distributing firmware updates to try and stop the vulnerabilities. (Firmware provides low-level control for a device's specific hardware.)

The group intends to provide further updates until the security vulnerability problem has been resolved - likely before the end of January.

Researchers at Google Project Zero exposed the flaws, showing how a hacker could exploit them to get passwords, encryption codes and other data. Up to that point there had, however, not been reports of any attacks using the vulnerability.