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As if this week’s half gigabyte Windows update and a handful of critical Office updates wasn’t enough of a challenge, IT teams need to deal with a bunch of Intel microcode updates.
While it is pretty cool to be able to change the way a computer’s instructions work on the fly after the computer is shipped, it is a bit scary.
These updates fix the Platypus side channel attack as well as a couple of other firmware attacks. The Platypus attack allows an attacker to steal encryption keys out of the Intel secure enclave using differential power analysis. Different microcode updates are applied to different Windows 10 versions including 2H2, 2004, 1909 and 1903 and even some on earlier versions. It does NOT look like the patches are available for Windows 8, 8.1 or 7.
Also note that these patches apply (since they are processor microcode) to particular processor families such as Avoton, Sandy Bridge and Valley View.
The nice thing is that since this is being done as part of Windows Update, Microsoft will help sort out which patches are available for each machine. I got mine last month (different processor family) and did not have any problems other than it took quite a while to install.
These patches are not painless – in some cases they cause performance degradation and even sometimes hangs. It will require a reboot.
IT – get ready for the fun times.
Credit: Bleeping Computer