The Always Up to Date Spectre and Meltdown MegaThread

[jsimenhoff]

Note: primary discussion can be found at the Spectre and Meltdown Vulnerabilities Information Thread

Welcome to the the Tom's Hardware Spectre and Meltdown MegaThread

Need help parsing through the avalanche of Spectre and Meltdown news? Don't know if you should patch, up date, or hold off to a later date? Fear not! You've come to the right place. This thread is here to give you the most up to date news on the Spectre and Meltdown CPU security flaws as well as recommendations on how to keep your system safe and secure.

For all of the latest news please follow our Spectre and Meltdown Megapost on Tom's Hardware.

UPDATES AS OF 1/29/2018, 10 AM EST
Microsoft/Intel disable "garbage" patches

Everything We Know So Far

• 
  ■Understanding The Meltdown and Spectre Exploits
  ■Patches from Intel cause Errors
  ■Motherboard Vendors Release BIOS Updates For Spectre
  ■RISC-V Foundation Calls for Broad Adoption of Open-Source ISAs in Wake of Meltdown, Spectre
  ■Intel Pledges to Put Security First After Meltdown, Spectre
  ■Spectre, Meltdown Patch Is Making Some Old AMD PCs Unbootable

Security Tools
The following tools check the security status of your CPU

• 
  ■InSpectre
  ■Ashampoo® Spectre Meltdown CPU Checker

For now, it is recommended to avoid updates and patches related to Spectre and Meltdown. The patches have been reported to be buggy not only by users, but also by Intel.

Do you have any experience with Spectre or Meltdown? Do you have security recommendations or have any news to share with us or the editorial team? Let us know in the comments below.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

InSpectre Home Page
Nice little tool , to check the Spectre and Meltdown security status of your CPU.

InSpectre
Direct Link for the tool

Safe: Nothing to install. Just run , and it instantly tells you if your CPU is secure.

If you have the Microsoft Patch and the BIOS update for your board , results should be NO and NO.

NOTE: Intel has asked motherboard manufacturers to take down some of the current BIOS releases that fix the vulnerability due to a lot of systems not booting or being very unstable. A new stable BIOS to fix the issue will be released in the near future for the ones that were taken down.