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Microsoft releases new Spectre patch to disable Intel's fix

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CIOL Writers
New Update
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Microsoft has released an emergency security update to fix Intel's buggy patch after the company confirmed that their security patches caused computers to reboot more often than normal. Microsoft said it was rolling an out of band security update that specifically disables Intel's Spectre variant 2 patch.

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Microsoft has issued the update as part of its Windows Update catalog, which means you’ll need to download it manually for now. It’s worth applying to all the systems that are experiencing the issues since Intel’s buggy firmware updates. Microsoft said that system instability triggered by Intel's faulty security patch can cause data loss or corruption.

In addition, Microsoft is also releasing a new registry key setting for impacted devices, allowing IT admins to manually disable or enable the Spectre variant 2 protections. The security updates are available for Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 systems.

Last week, Intel said that patches it released to address the two high-profile security vulnerabilities in its chips are faulty, advising customers, computer makers and cloud providers to stop installing them.

Intel has also confirmed that it has identified the cause of the unexpected reboots on systems using Broadwell and Haswell processors, and is working on a revised update that will address the exploit without causing a random reboot. Meanwhile, Intel is also working on solutions for machines powered by Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Skylake, and Kaby Lake processors.

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