Intel has announced that fixes for Spectre are now under way for affected chipsets.
To be exact, the update is for the company's sixth-generation Skylake processors and later, including the seventh-generation Kaby Lake and eighth-generation Coffee Lake. It also includes other Skylake variants, from Skylake X and Skylake D to Skylake SP.
Spectre Update Goes Live
The patch's release date isn't exactly the same for every user out there. Generally, it depends on which manufacturer they bought their computers or motherboards from and wait for them to roll out the update they got from Intel.
"Based on these efforts, we have now released production microcode updates to our OEM customers and partners for Kaby Lake- and Coffee Lake-based platforms, plus additional Skylake-based platforms," Intel says.
At any rate, the important part is that the chipmaker has started shipping out fixes for the Spectre flaw.
Meanwhile, older generations such as Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Broadwell, and Haswell have yet to receive a new microcode update. According to Intel, patches for these are still under beta.
Second Time's The Charm
It's worth mentioning that users who install the patch may run into bugs and whatnot, as Intel is working on these fixes under a lot of pressure, after all. There's even evidence for that already. For those who haven't been keeping track, Intel launched the first microcode update for Broadwell, Haswell, Skylake, Kaby Lake, and Coffee Lake chips sometime in January, but there was a big hiccup: It introduced a random reboot issue to users' machines. Needless to say, the company warned against installing the patches in the wake of the reports.
Even Microsoft had to work fast for a system update to keep Intel's shoddy mitigation patch from doing any more harm to users' computers.
Other Measures To Stay Safe From Spectre
There isn't much a user can do to steer clear of Spectre, but there are a couple of ways to be relatively safe. The gist of it is to update the operating system, browser, and firmware and keep antivirus software on at all times, but for more detailed info, feel free to check out our guide on that.
Now to sum things up, Intel has begun rolling out fixes for the Spectre CPU flaw, and it should just be a matter of time before everyone receives it, which will be dependent on how fast manufacturers and motherboard makers can provide them to users.
