Intel users may want to check out Microsoft’s latest support document, which details several new microcode updates for the Denverton, Sandy Bridge (E, EP), Valley View, and Whiskey Lake U processor families. The patches address four nasty speculative execution flaws, such as the well-publicized ZombieLoad attack.
- CVE-2019-11091 – Microarchitectural Data Sampling Uncacheable Memory (MDSUM)
- CVE-2018-12126 – Microarchitectural Store Buffer Data Sampling (MSBDS)
- CVE-2018-12127 – Microarchitectural Load Port Data Sampling (MLPDS)
- CVE-2018-12130 – Microarchitectural Fill Buffer Data Sampling (MFBDS)
The updates are available for all versions of Windows 10 (even older, unsupported builds), but users need to identify their CPUs and download them manually. It isn’t clear when (or if) these patches will be rolled out automatically via Windows Update.
Intel’s previous batch of microcode updates addressed vulnerabilities present in Apollo Lake, Cherry View, Gemini Lake, Haswell (Desktop, M, Xeon E3), and Valley View CPUs. These have been available since August 2019.
Affected users may visit Microsoft’s Update Catalog to download the appropriate update.