Intel CPUs are getting mysterious critical security updates. This is a worrying trend, as it could lead to serious vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. The security updates for Intel CPUs are typically released in batches, and they can be quite large. So far, there have been several batches of security updates for Intel CPUs that have been released in the past few months. One of the most recent batches of security updates for Intel CPUs was released on October 15th. This update included a number of vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. One of the vulnerabilities that was included in this update was a vulnerability that could be used to crash systems. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2018-5471 and it is located in the Linux kernel module called nfs_acl. If an attacker were to exploit this vulnerability, they would be able to access sensitive data on systems running Linux. This is a serious vulnerability because it could allow attackers to crash systems and steal data from users who are using these systems. Another vulnerability that was included in this update was a vulnerability that could be used to inject malicious code into system memory. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2018-5472 and it is located in the Linux kernel module called mmcblk2sock. If an attacker were to exploit this vulnerability, they would be able to inject malicious code into system memory and cause problems for users who are using these systems.
Intel is about to announce a security issue with some of its CPUs. The company has released “critical” CPU microcode updates that fix an undisclosed severe security issue. They’re rolling out to Linux systems, and updates for Windows PCs likely aren’t far behind.
The updates, classified as “critical,” were first spotted by Phoronix. Intel will likely provide more information soon and the microcode updates should make their way to Windows Update shortly, too. The details of the security flaw have not yet been publicly revealed.
As for which processors are affected, updates were discovered for Intel Whiskey Lake and Tiger Lake CPUs, though there could be others. We only know about the two discovered by Phoronix for sure. We’ll have to wait for updates to release to the masses to find out exactly which chips have the vulnerability.
Even though the patch was spotted on Linux, the folks at Phoronix did its testing on a Dell XPS with Linux, but Dell issued “urgent” Windows firmware binaries for the same computer around the same dates. Your PC manufacturer may provide fixes for your system, but hopefully, Microsoft will roll them out to all affected PCs soon.
Depending on the urgency, we could see the update pushed during the next Patch Tuesday in February 2022, or Windows could issue an Out of Band update to address them sooner.
