Microsoft provided security updates earlier this week to address the Spectre Variant 2 (CVE 2017-5715) data leaking vulnerability that affects Intel’s Skylake H/S (6th generation Core CPUs) and Skylake U/Y & Skylake U23e (6th Generation Core m Processors).Â
This comes after Intel recently announced that they have completed their validations and started to release microcode to OEM partners. Intel said back on Feb 20 that they had been developing and validating updated firmware and microcode solutions to protect Intel customers against the Spectre security exploits disclosed by Google Project Zero. The updates include a Google-developed mitigation technique for Variant 2 dubbed “Retpoline“, a software construct for preventing branch-target-injection.
The Microsoft security update can be downloaded via the Microsoft Update Catalog and is targeted for Windows 10 version 1709 (Fall Creators Update) & Windows Server version 1709 (Server Core). The update also includes Intel microcode updates that were already released for the same Operating Systems at the time of Release To Manufacturing (RTM).