"We have now issued firmware updates for 90 percent of Intel CPUs introduced in the past five years, but we have more work to do", Shenoy said.
In a blog post, Intel said new patches for Broadwell and Haswell-based computers - chips that are two generations removed from the current Skylake design - are being tested by "industry partners", which nearly assuredly includes the Big Three cloud computing providers in Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google.
Intel's advice today is pretty much the same-it's advising OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, and software vendors to stop deploying the buggy updates, and to focus on testing early versions of the updated firmware.
Shanoy said Monday it has figured out why the patch is causing unexpected reboots for some of the affected chips, and it will use that information to release an updated patch in the future. To check whether your system may have a problem, check the full list of processors at the Intel Product Security center.
Intel has a patching problem. Once that testing wraps up, the update will be made available for everyone. Shenoy apologizes further. He then states that they are working "around the clock" to ensure the final fix gets out as soon.
In the meantime, computer users were advised to be vigilante with security practices.
Intel now says users should avoid installing and partners should stop distributing the patch it issued to protect against the Meltdown and Spectre attacks.
"We have now identified the root cause for Broadwell and Haswell platforms, and made good progress in developing a solution to address it".
The statement is the latest update from Intel on its messy follow up to the Spectre and Meltdown exploits, which were revealed two weeks ago and affected chips from multiple vendors. "This would be delivered via a BIOS update, and would not impact mitigations for Variant 1 (Spectre) and Variant 3 (Meltdown)". Last week, however, we found out that the issue is affecting patched Ivy Bridge-, Sandy Bridge-, Skylake-, and Kaby Lake-based platforms as well.
