Security Update – Intel released Spectre patches for Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Skylake Platforms

Intel released microcode updates to address Spectre vulnerability(CVE-2017-5715) for many of its chipsets including the recently announced Intel® Xeon® Scalable and Intel® Xeon® D processors for data center systems.

The Spectre attack breaks the isolation between the applications, it allows an attacker to trick legitimate applications into leaking their secrets.

Earlier this month Intel fixed the vulnerability only with Skylake, leaving Kaby Lake, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Broadwell H, Haswell, Haswell Perf, Coffee Lake.

The new Microcode updates have been released to OEM customers and partners and it covers over Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake-based, and Skylake based platforms.

“This represents our 6th, 7th, and 8th Generation Intel® Core™ product lines as well as our latest Intel® Core™ X-series processor family. It also includes we recently announced Intel® Xeon® Scalable and Intel® Xeon® D processors for data center systems”. says Navin Shenoy.

The micro update will be available OEM firmware updates, here you can find the microcode updates currently planned by Intel.

Last week Intel conjointly expands the rewards for Bug Bounty Program centered specifically on side-channel vulnerabilities.The award for disclosures underneath this program is up to $250,000.

Vulnerability Severity	Intel Hardware w/ Side Channel Exploit through Software
Critical (9.0 – 10.0)	Up to $250,000
High (7.0 – 8.9)	Up to $100,000
Medium (4.0 – 6.9)	Up to $20,000
Low (0.1 – 3.9)	Up to $5,000

Rick Echevarria said “We will continue to evolve the program as needed to make it as effective as possible and to help us fulfill our security-first pledge. Thank you, in advance, to all of those across the industry who choose to participate.”