EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Intel has sent up a flare regarding its Meltdown and Spectre patches, advising businesses to hold off until it can issue a new patch.

According to SC Media, Intel reports that it has uncovered the root cause of the original issue in its Broadwell and Haswell processor lines. Quoting the vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, SC Media writes, ““We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and other unpredictable system behavior.”

Putting the whole spectacle in context, Wired reports, “Developing stable patches for every processor, every firmware stack, and every operating system adds up to a tall order. While Meltdown has been a fairly straightforward bug to patch, Spectre mitigation requires more sweeping, conceptual changes in how processors manage data flows, making it more likely that early versions of proposed fixes will have problems.”

Experts believe that the management of how the chip vulnerabilities were addressed initially created unnecessary confusion. In part due to chipmakers and other developers trying to save face.

As Wired points out, Meltdown and Spectre were significant enough problems to warrant quick–albeit imperfect–fixes. But, as the publication reports, “Now both individuals and organizations continue to struggle with understanding whether they have the right updates installed to actually protect their systems without causing more problems.”

When the chips are down….

Read the full story at Wired.