Microsoft yesterday released Cumulative updates as part of the Patch Tuesday update for all versions of its operating systems. The latest cumulative update released by Microsoft contains patches for the Spectre Variant 2 vulnerability for Windows 10 users.
Microsoft in partnership with AMD has released new mitigation or patches for the Spectre vulnerability. AMD released these patches in the form of microcodes.
AMD confirmed that the Spectre Variant 2 vulnerability required additional protections and hence the company released microcode updates for its processors.
Microsoft released the new patch update with version KB4093112 which is available for download via Windows Update for Windows 10 users. The update comes with the mitigation for the Spectre Vulnerability.
The Redmond Giant also announced that the new Spectre Patch is available for users with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update version 1709 installed on their PCs.
On the other hand AMD has said that its customers are already protected against the Spectre Variant 1 due to the release of cumulative updates by Microsoft for its operating systems.
AMD also said that the microcode updates can be installed on the system by updating the BIOS.
“Microcode updates with our recommended mitigations addressing Variant 2 (Spectre) have been released to our customers and ecosystem partners for AMD processors dating back to the first ‘Bulldozer’ core products introduced in 2011,” AMD explains.
Microsoft along with other OEM partners Intel released patch updates for the systems affected by the Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerabilities to make sure that the customers are not effected due to the vulnerability issue.
Meltdown is said to be a security flaw in the hardware design of the chipsets that affects computers mostly with Intel processors. The Desktops, Laptops and even the servers from top-level vendors including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Cloud services were affected by the Meltdown Vulnerability.
Spectre is said to be a security flaw that affects select smartphones and mobile computing devices with Intel, ARM and AMD chipsets. To mitigate the damage by the Spectre Vulnerability AMD has released microcodes for its processors.
