14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has recently confirmed that its Spectre (Variant 2) patch could cause system reboots and other issues on computers installing it, and the company recommended against installing it until a workaround is provided.
As a consequence, other companies that shipped firmware updates including Intel’s patches are now forced to suspend them as well in order to prevent these issues from hitting their devices.
After Dell published an advisory to recommend users to avoid installing the latest BIOS updates and to downgrade to the previous release, HP does the same thing and announces that it pulled the latest patches because of the said issues.
“Intel has updated their security advisory recommending to stop deployment of current versions of the MCU patch as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and other unpredictable system behavior,” HP says in an advisory on its website.
Intel says it’s sorry for the millionth time this year
The company goes on to explain that it is removing HP BIOS softpaqs with Intel microcode patches from its download center and will reissue patches that include the previous Intel microcode starting January 25. HP will wait until Intel publishes new updates and will then reissue the BIOS updates as well, it says.
Intel apologized for the blunder earlier this week, as it acknowledged issues caused by its security updates on Broadwell, Haswell, and even new platforms. The company says it has already identified the root cause for the bug, and says that it’s currently in the process of developing a solution to address it.
“We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and other unpredictable system behavior,” Intel says.
Without patches, users are recommended to stay away from unknown sites and content that could try to exploit the Spectre Variant 2 vulnerability. There are no known attacks at this point, companies say.