Intel in past microcode update guidance that some older chip architectures going back about a decade would receive updates to address the Spectre vulnerability. However, in a recent microcode revision guidance, the company reversed course.
Intel announced that Penryn (launched in 2007), Yorkfield (2007), Wolfdale (2007), Bloomfield (2008), Clarksfield (2009), Nehalem-based Jasper Forest (2010), and Intel Atom “SoFIA” (2015) will no longer receive the Spectre patches, as originally promised.
Intel seems to have a more has shipped a much more stable Spectre v2 patch for Haswell and Broadwell users which shoould start comingout in motherboard firmware updates from OEMs in the next few weeks. Microsoft may release its OS-level patches on an upcoming patch Tuesday soon, as well,
Now Intel the following reasons for no longer providing the patches:
After a comprehensive investigation of the microarchitectures and microcode capabilities for these products, Intel has determined to not release microcode updates for these products for one or more reasons including, but not limited to the following:
- Micro-architectural characteristics that preclude a practical implementation of features mitigating Variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715)
- Limited Commercially Available System Software support
- Based on customer inputs, most of these products are implemented as “closed systems” and therefore are expected to have a lower likelihood of exposure to these vulnerabilities.
