Intel says 90 per cent of its CPUs have received patches to protect against Spectre and Meltdown

Earlier this month, two major vulnerabilities, named Spectre and Meltdown, were discovered that has most CPUs made in the last five years. Ever since the reports, Intel has been working hard to roll out security patches to protect your computer. Intel VP Navin Shenoy this week said that the company has issued firmware updates for 90 per cent of Intel CPUs made in the past five years.
Shenoy in a blog post not only provided an update on the company’s progress to address the exploits but also responded to reports from last week where customers saw frequent reboots on firmware updated systems. While most reports were related to reboots taking place on older processors, Shenoy also confirmed that the updates are causing newer PCs with Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Skylake and Kaby Lake processors to frequently reboot as well.
The company says that the patches also affect performance depending on “specific workloads and configurations.” While some tests such as simulating stock exchange interaction and online transaction showed a slowdown of around 4 per cent, other tests with severe workloads showed a slowdown as high as 25 per cent. Intel’s report on performance slow down comes after Microsoft came clean earlier this month that fixes for Spectre would slow down Windows PC.
While companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google have been transparent about how the vulnerabilities will affect their products, Intel has received flak for staying tight-lipped about the whole issue for weeks. Intel CEO Brian during CES earlier this month lauded the collaborative efforts between companies to mitigate Spectre and Meltdown, but did not provide a clear picture of how the fixes would affect performance. Shenoy’s update this week is an attempt to provide a better picture of where the company stands right now and notes that it has “more work to do.”