Intel is continuing to make progress in its efforts to tackle the Spectre/Meltdown bugs that were publicly unveiled last month. While earlier firmware updates ran into some issues, the chip maker is back on the ball with new firmware updates free of reboot errors. This week, new firmware began rolling out for Skylake processors specifically.

Previously, microcode errors to Broadwell and Haswell processors resulted in reboot errors, causing Microsoft to issue a Windows 10 update disabling the patch. Intel has since found the root cause of this issue and has begun rolling out firmware updates to more processors, including Skylake.

Now that updates are rolling out, Intel is keen to convince users to download system updates. In the latest security blog post, Intel's Navin Shenoy wrote:

“I can’t emphasize enough how critical it is for everyone to always keep their systems up-to-date. Research tells us there is frequently a substantial lag between when people receive updates and when they actually implement them. In today’s environment, that must change. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber-emergency unit, US-CERT, as many as 85 percent of all targeted attacks can be prevented with – among other things – regular system updates.”

There is still more work to be done, and Intel is continuing to work with industry partners to implement more updates in order to ensure that Spectre/Meltdown doesn't become a heavily exploited security issue. This latest round of firmware updates is being pushed out to Intel OEMs as we speak, so it is important that end-users update their systems.

KitGuru Says: Intel is already working on new processors that will be completely rid of Spectre for later this year. In the meantime though, there is an extensive back catalogue of CPUs that need updates.

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