Intel said it's making progress on firmware updates that are intended to mitigate security threats posed by Spectre and Meltdown, and without the reboot issue that plagued earlier updates. As part of that, the company said it started pushing out a new round of firmware to Skylake-based systems earlier this week.
"Ultimately, these updates will be made available in most cases through OEM firmware updates. I can’t emphasize enough how critical it is for everyone to always keep their systems up-to-date. Research tells us there is frequently a substantial lag between when people receive updates and when they actually implement them," Intel's Navin Shenoy stated in a blog post. Except, in the previous case, always keeping your system up to date lead to reoccurring crashes.
The new round of firmware is being pushed out to Intel's OEM customers and industry partners. Intel said it's also pushing out beta updates so that its customers can extensively them before it rolls out finalized code.
"Finally, while we continue to make progress, I recognize there is still more work to do. To our industry partners, I thank you again for your support and partnership as we advance through this process. We remain as committed as ever to addressing these issues and providing transparent and timely information," Shenoy said.
If you own a Skylake system (and even if you don't), continue to be on the lookout for security patches. That includes both OS updates and new BIOS releases.
