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Microcode update available question

I am using my HP EliteDesk 705 g3 mini and AMD processor. I just did download BIOS update from HP manufacturer and I just did updated BIOS. then I just did disabled Microsoft driver automatically in gpedit.msc settings and System Properties settings. then I just download all software drivers from HP manufacturer then I just did check and installed all Windows Updates, still no microcode available?

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How many times do I have to tell you?

1) You are looking at an useless tool made in 2019 (massively OUTDATED).

2) It will only tell you whether you are vulnerable to 2019 meltdown and spectre vulnerabilities.

3) This useless 2019 tool told you that you don't have the 2019 meltdown and spectre vulnerabilities and therefore you don't need to patch them via microcode update. You have an AMD CPU which wasn't affected by 2019 meltdown and spectre vulnerabilities --- so it will ALWAYS SAY that there is no "Microcode Update Available" because InSpectre doesn't check AMD CPU.

4) Your 2022 BIOS has patched ALL SUBSEQUENT related vulnerabilities (which some of them affects AMD CPU).

ALL your previous threads are flights of fancy talks that showed that you have zero understanding of what's going on. I am not being mean or anything like that --- I am just telling you that you have zero business of disabling stuff left and right because you don't know anything.

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“InSpectre” is an easy to use & understand utility designed to clarify the many overlapping and confusing aspects of any Windows system's ability to prevent the Meltdown and Spectre attacks.

As the application's textual display says...

In early 2018 the PC industry was rocked by the revelation that common processor design features, widely used to increase the performance of modern PCs, could be abused to create critical security vulnerabilities. The industry quickly responded, and is responding, to these Meltdown and Spectre threats by updating operating systems, motherboard BIOSes and CPU firmware.

Protection from these two significant vulnerabilities requires updates to every system's hardware–its BIOS which reloads updated processor firmware–and its operating system–to use the new processor features. To further complicate matters, newer processors contain features to minimize the performance impact of these important security improvements. But older processors, lacking these newer features, will be significantly burdened and system performance will suffer under some workloads.

This InSpectre utility was designed to clarify every system's current situation so that appropriate measures can be taken to update the system's hardware and software for maximum security and performance.

• Release #1 — Initial release: The first release was triggering false-positive warnings from 3rd-party anti-virus scanners. This was probably due to a registry key the application uses to enable/disable the Meltdown and Spectre protections. Also, the language used in one of the text-explainers was confusing and self-contradictory.

• Release #3 — Raw Technical Data Display: InSpectre's more technically inclined users have asked for more information about how InSpectre makes its decisions. Non-Windows users have also asked for that information so that InSpectre could be run on Linux and MacOS machines (under WINE) to check the non-Windows machine's CPU support. As shown to the right, InSpectre release #3 adds a “Show Technical Details” item in the system control menu at the upper-left corner of the app. Click on the little “Spectre” icon and select the “Show Tech Details” item to display the raw data obtained by InSpectre's analysis of its operating environment.
• Release #5 — Copy results to system clipboard: Earlier releases of InSpectre did not encourage copying the program's displays out of the application. Any region of the results can now be marked with the mouse and copied to the system's shared clipboard by using the standard Ctrl-C key combination. The application's system menu (under the small Spectre icon at the upper-left corner of the application window) also now contains a “Copy to Clipboard” option which will either copy a marked region or the entire textual content if no region is marked for copying.
• Release #6 — Worked around a Microsoft bug and more  . . . Users of an earlier version of Windows 10 (version 1703 ‑ the non-Fall Creator's Update) reported that InSpectre did not believe that their system had been patched for the Spectre vulnerability. Upon analysis, a bug was discovered in that version of Windows which affected the way 32-bit applications, such as InSpectre, viewed the system. This was apparently fixed in the later “Fall Creator's Update” (version 1709) but not in the earlier version. A 64-bit “probe” was added to the 6th release of InSpectre to work around this bug in version 1703 so that InSpectre would accurately reflect any system's true protection. And, while we were at it, the language presented in the summary was changed from “vulnerable” to “protected” so that “YES” was the good answer and “NO!” was the bad answer. :)
• Release #7 — Added the display of the system's CPUID  . . . Microsoft will be making Intel (and perhaps AMD?) processor microcode patches available for the most persistent Spectre Variant 2 vulnerability. These will become available over time as they become available from Intel and they will apparently need to be manually installed by interested Windows users. It is not yet clear whether Microsoft will be willing or interested in making these patches available for earlier versions of its Windows operating systems, but we can hope. The patches are applicable to specific CPU models only, which are identified by each chip's “CPUID.” For this reason, InSpectre now prominently displays the system's processor CPUID at the top of its system summary. Please check this page on Microsoft's website to see whether a microcode patch for your CPU, determined by its CPUID, is available at any time: KB4090007: Intel microcode updates You can also use your favorite Internet search engine to search for the string “ KB4090007 ” which should always take to that page and to its related Microsoft Update Catalog page to obtain the specific Windows update.
• Release #8 — Now shows whether an Intel microcode patch is (ever) available for Spectre. Intel has finished designing microcode update patches for its processors. On April 2nd, 2018, they announced that processors that have not yet been patched will never be patched. Their full statement is available in this PDF document . In that document, Intel specifies which of their many processors do have patches and which of their more recent processors will never receive updated firmware. Now that the industry has this information, this 8th release of InSpectre incorporates that list of CPUIDs and displays whether microcode firmware updates exist for the system's Intel CPU.
• “ Gibson releases InSpectre vulnerability and performance checker ” Martin Brinkmann, writing for GHacks.net, was the first out of the gate with an announcement of InSpectre.
• “ InSpectre: See whether your PC's protected from Meltdown and Spectre ” Woody Leonard wrote a very nice piece on InSpectre for his column in ComputerWorld.
• “ Is your PC vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre CPU exploits? InSpectre tells you ” PC World's terrific coverage by Senior Editor, Brad Chacos.
• “ InSpectre will quickly check if your PC is vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre ” Nice coverage of InSpectre by Windows Central.
• “ Tip: Make Sure Your PC is Safe from Meltdown and Spectre ” Paul Thurrott weighs in with a nice summary write up of InSpectre.
• “ Meltdown and Spectre: Is your PC vulnerable? ” Adrian Kingsley-Hughes writing for ZDNet: A new app gives you a simple overview of your system's vulnerability status, as well as what kind of performance hit the patches might be having.
• “ Use InSpectre to see if you're protected from Meltdown and Spectre ” A great short write up about InSpectre by The Tech Report.
• “ Download InSpectre to check for CPU performance issues ” Another nice notice of InSpectre.
• “ InSpectre Meltdown and Spectre Check tool released by GRC ” Nice summary coverage by Mark Tyson of HEXUS.
• “ InSpectre Makes It Easy To See If Your PC Is Vulnerable To Spectre And Meltdown ” Another nice summary of InSpectre by Shane McGlaun of HotHardware.
• “ InSpectre is a Free Lightweight Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerability and Performance Checker ” Jon Sutton for Game Debate wrote a very nice summary of InSpectre's operation and pointed people to GRC for the download.
• “ InSpectre checks for Meltdown and Spectre breaches ” Another nice notice of InSpectre.
• Major Geeks: “ InSpectre Release 2 ”  
• Softpedia: “ Find out whether your system is currently vulnerable to Spectre and Meltdown attacks in just one click using this straightforward app. ”
• Guru3D: “ Download: inSpectre Meltdown and Spectre Check tool for Windows ”
• FindMySoft: “ InSpectre - Protect yourself against Meltdown and Spectre ” A very nice review by Frederick Barton of FindmySoft... but 3rd-party download sites are worrisome due to the potential for abuse.
• TechSpot: “ Easily examine and understand any Windows system's hardware and software capability to prevent Meltdown and Spectre attacks. ”

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FINALLY updated my CPU Microcode (no thanks to MS or my notebook vendor)

• cpu microcode patch

By exile360 March 30, 2018 in General Chat

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WARNING!:  The following post is for INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY!  I do NOT advise that anyone use this as any kind of tutorial or guide unless they are absolutely certain that they know what they are doing, are prepared to potentially break, hose, crash/BSOD their system, potentially resulting in the loss of data or other system damage/malfunction.  I take no responsibility for anyone who chooses to attempt this and ends up damaging and/or crashing their system or wiping any/all data from their OS or anything else that might potentially go wrong in the course of attempting these actions.

So, with that scary disclaimer out of the way, here is a story about persistence in the face of planned obsolescence.

I'm still using Windows 7 (with no plans to upgrade to any newer version of Windows any time soon and it seems I'm not alone ) but I'm running fairly modern hardware (an Intel i7-7700K (Kaby Lake) based system).  Unfortunately this means that, at least currently, Microsoft doesn't support any of the CPU microcode updates for my system to secure it against any of the recently exposed vulnerabilities that have been making headlines lately (the now infamous Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities ; additional info here ) because a) I'm not running the only OS they seem to care too much about right now, the glorious Windows 10, and b) because I'm using a modern CPU, which according to MS is not an officially supported combination (even though the two work quite well together, as does my new Samsung 960 PRO NVME SSD and all the other new/modern parts I chose to use in my laptop).

So there you have it.  An outdated awesome OS with an exclusive Intel patch.

Life is good.

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John L. Galt

Great read!

Question - How does GRC's InSpectre tool show on your system now that you have patched it?  And, assuming this is easily reversible, how doe sit show without the patch?

Previously it showed that I was protected from Meltdown but not Spectre, now it shows that I am protected from both (though at a higher performance cost because MS has not provided a patch for my older OS to enable the performance impact mitigating capabilities in my modern CPU as they've currently only provided that patch for Windows 10; thanks Microsoft...NOT!).

So yeah, I'm fully shielded now, and so far at least things seem OK with regards to performance.

I'm trying to find a way to modify my Phoenix BIOS with the microcode, as my motherboard and CPU are woefully out of date, and I'm not likely to receive updates from either eVGA fro the BIOS nor Microsoft for the CPU microcode.  I've found instructions for AMI BIOS and UEFI, but nothing for my ancient Phoenix BIOS.

Good reading throughout your post, there.  I might try to force my own patch for my CPU to help offset some of the issues - I'm patched for Spectre but not Meltdown at all.

Yes, thankfully it can be patched either through an update to the BIOS (the optimal solution) or through a driver within the OS (the path I was forced down as well you may be) which isn't as efficient, but should be just as effective with regards to security.  Theoretically, if MS would push a patch for 7 it wouldn't even matter though, because that would force the OS to utilize the performance optimizations built into my newer chip to offset the vast majority of lost performance but I doubt they'll be doing so any time soon if at all since they'd much rather force everyone they can onto Windows 10 in every way possible now that they are in the business of offering the OS as a service rather than a license and are so invested in leveraging spyware, which 10 has much more of than 7 (and what 7 has I have crippled via various means).

You can give the method I used a try if you're brave enough.  I'm certain that with your skill level you'll have no issues with it, just be sure to read the instructions carefully and you should be OK.

9 hours ago, exile360 said: 9 hours ago, exile360 said: Previously it showed that I was protected from Meltdown but not Spectre, now it shows that I am protected from both (though at a higher performance cost because MS has not provided a patch for my older OS to enable the performance impact mitigating capabilities in my modern CPU as they've currently only provided that patch for Windows 10; thanks Microsoft...NOT!). So yeah, I'm fully shielded now, and so far at least things seem OK with regards to performance.

5 hours ago, exile360 said: Yes, thankfully it can be patched either through an update to the BIOS (the optimal solution) or through a driver within the OS (the path I was forced down as well you may be) which isn't as efficient, but should be just as effective with regards to security.  Theoretically, if MS would push a patch for 7 it wouldn't even matter though, because that would force the OS to utilize the performance optimizations built into my newer chip to offset the vast majority of lost performance but I doubt they'll be doing so any time soon if at all since they'd much rather force everyone they can onto Windows 10 in every way possible now that they are in the business of offering the OS as a service rather than a license and are so invested in leveraging spyware, which 10 has much more of than 7 (and what 7 has I have crippled via various means). You can give the method I used a try if you're brave enough.  I'm certain that with your skill level you'll have no issues with it, just be sure to read the instructions carefully and you should be OK.

Kay'....time to break your bubble as I did to others and please stop spreading "fake news" (pun intended) about vmware tools being able to help with Spectre fix

First, I would like to inform you that VMware CPU Microcode Update Driver does not work and you are TOTALLY not shielded

Please do not trust InSpectre result.

Do make a use of Get-SpeculationControlSettings provided by Microsoft

If you use VMware tools, InSpectre will report your system is protected from Spectre, however IT IS NOT.

You don't believe me? Fine, run Get-SpeculationControlSettings and you will see :  

Notice the bottom two line. The mitigation is not enabled by Windows 7 kernel at all.

Why? Recall back the booting procedure:

VMWare microcode loader Driver is loaded way too late for windows kernel to detect IBRS and IBPB command MSRs (These two only available from Intel latest microcode)

The correct result and properly "shielded" system would be :

*I specifically registered on this site to inform you on this issue. A lot of newbie think VMware CPU Microcode Update Driver will do the trick by using latest intel microcode, but the fact --> it does not*

Which is why you didn't notice any performance regression....... ~.~

Sorry for breaking your hope.

1 hour ago, Digitama said: Kay'....time to break your bubble as I did to others and please stop spreading "fake news" (pun intended) about vmware tools being able to help with Spectre fix First, I would like to inform you that VMware CPU Microcode Update Driver does not work and you are TOTALLY not shielded Please do not trust InSpectre result. Do make a use of Get-SpeculationControlSettings provided by Microsoft If you use VMware tools, InSpectre will report your system is protected from Spectre, however IT IS NOT. You don't believe me? Fine, run Get-SpeculationControlSettings and you will see :   Hardware support for branch target injection mitigation is present: True Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is present: False Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is enabled: False Notice the bottom two line. The mitigation is not enabled by Windows 7 kernel at all. Why? Recall back the booting procedure: BIOS/UEFI--->Boot loader phase--->Kernel--->Session Manager--->Driver ----> Application VMWare microcode loader Driver is loaded way too late for windows kernel to detect IBRS and IBPB command MSRs (These two only available from Intel latest microcode) The correct result and properly "shielded" system would be : Hardware support for branch target injection mitigation is present: True Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is present: True Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is enabled: True *I specifically registered on this site to inform you on this issue. A lot of newbie think VMware CPU Microcode Update Driver will do the trick by using latest intel microcode, but the fact --> it does not* Which is why you didn't notice any performance regression....... ~.~ Sorry for breaking your hope.

I tried the command you suggested in both CMD as well as Powershell and it wasn't recognized as a functional command in either one.

Also, what about the MS patch for Windows 10 for the microcode recently released (referring to this )?  Since MS obviously can't patch anyone's BIOS with a Windows update (especially since they don't have any means of patching all the different manufacturer's BIOS for every system the patch is being offered to), how does this update work then?  Is it not just patching the microcode and how it is utilized by the OS in the same way that this driver supposedly is?

I'm not saying you're wrong about the VMWare driver not working, but I do believe you are wrong about the hard requirement for a BIOS update in order for the microcode to be updated/patched, otherwise that MS update wouldn't exist.

35 minutes ago, exile360 said: I tried the command you suggested in both CMD as well as Powershell and it wasn't recognized as a functional command in either one. Also, what about the MS patch for Windows 10 for the microcode recently released (referring to this )?  Since MS obviously can't patch anyone's BIOS with a Windows update (especially since they don't have any means of patching all the different manufacturer's BIOS for every system the patch is being offered to), how does this update work then?  Is it not just patching the microcode and how it is utilized by the OS in the same way that this driver supposedly is? I'm not saying you're wrong about the VMWare driver not working, but I do believe you are wrong about the hard requirement for a BIOS update in order for the microcode to be updated/patched, otherwise that MS update wouldn't exist.

I know operating system can load microcode just fine. However, for KB4090007 (windows 10 and skylake to coffee generation only) case, Microsoft bootloader loads its own microcode from Intel at bootloader stage which new MSRs are detectable by the kernel. Then the kernel will be able to activate the mitigation. As you mentioned, it is unlikely for Microsoft to do so for Win7 or old CPU.

So, for the Get-SpeculationControlSettings, you need to install latest powershell from microsoft.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/

https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases

Don't forget to install Powershell prerequisites too ----> Windows Management Framework 5.0 (Google it?)

After powershell installation is done, open powershell with admin privilege:

Thus, you will be able to see the status of windows kernel mitigation for Spectre and Meltdown

Don't forget to set the ExecutionPolicy to restricted after you are done checking.

Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-my/help/4074629/understanding-the-output-of-get-speculationcontrolsettings-powershell

4 hours ago, Digitama said: Hardware support for branch target injection mitigation is present: True Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is present: True (Corrected, I typed quickly without re-reading) Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is enabled: False

Check for "Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is enabled" status.

OK, I finally got everything related to Powershell updated and running.  Here's the output from the command you suggested:

So is there any advantage to installing the microcode via the VMWare driver?  Also, as I am running Windows 7 with a Kaby Lake CPU (an unsupported configuration by Microsoft), shouldn't pretty much all of the mitigations show as "FALSE" since it hasn't offered me any of the relevant patches for my particular OS/hardware?

1 hour ago, exile360 said: Speculation control settings for CVE-2017-5715 [branch target injection] For more information about the output below, please refer to https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/help/4074629 Hardware support for branch target injection mitigation is present: True Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is present: True Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is enabled: False Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is disabled by system policy: False Windows OS support for branch target injection mitigation is disabled by absence of hardware support: False   Speculation control settings for CVE-2017-5754 [rogue data cache load] Hardware requires kernel VA shadowing: True Windows OS support for kernel VA shadow is present: True Windows OS support for kernel VA shadow is enabled: True Windows OS support for PCID performance optimization is enabled: False [not required for security]

There is no advantage of installing microcode via VMWare driver, unless the you run virtual machine....then the os within the virtual machine will get protected from Spectre.

Let start with Meltdown CVE-2017-5754. This one doesn't require microcode update, purely software based fix with PCID/INVPCID accelerated optimization to minimize the slowdown from the fix. More info on how microsoft Meltdown fix works over here https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/srd/2018/03/23/kva-shadow-mitigating-meltdown-on-windows/ This is why "Windows OS support for kernel VA shadow is enabled" is shown as True. The bad news, there is no PCID optimization enabled for Win7 even though your CPU supports PCID/INVPCID. The optimization only enabled on windows 10 if the cpu supports PCID/INVPCID.

Now, for the Spectre CVE-2017-5715 part, your windows 7 kernel is vulnerable to spectre because windows kernel is not able to detect IBRS, IBPB and STIBP existence (the proper microcode is not loaded before kernel initialization =  VMware microcode loader loads the microcode too late in booting stage) and thus the kernel does not set-up to use these MSRs to protect your system against spectre as I highlighted in red.

IBRS, IBPB and STIBP documentation can be find over here https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/managed/c5/63/336996-Speculative-Execution-Side-Channel-Mitigations.pdf

On 3/30/2018 at 5:31 PM, exile360 said: Yes, thankfully it can be patched either through an update to the BIOS (the optimal solution) or through a driver within the OS (the path I was forced down as well you may be) which isn't as efficient, but should be just as effective with regards to security.  Theoretically, if MS would push a patch for 7 it wouldn't even matter though, because that would force the OS to utilize the performance optimizations built into my newer chip to offset the vast majority of lost performance but I doubt they'll be doing so any time soon if at all since they'd much rather force everyone they can onto Windows 10 in every way possible now that they are in the business of offering the OS as a service rather than a license and are so invested in leveraging spyware, which 10 has much more of than 7 (and what 7 has I have crippled via various means). You can give the method I used a try if you're brave enough.  I'm certain that with your skill level you'll have no issues with it, just be sure to read the instructions carefully and you should be OK.

Oh, brave enough I am, but my problem is not the methodology, my problem is that since the CPU I use has not been officially updated by Microsoft (and technically, Intel) my machine will take a pretty hefty performance hit because Microsoft is also not patching against the performance hits on CPUs it is not patching in Windows, IIRC.  I'll have to look more carefully.

Also, I have the original ones that Intel released, then pulled, and I decided to wait until I started seeing reports of others with my family of processors having successfully patched before moving on.

If I am lucky, I will get with an eVGA rep and see if I can get source for the BIOS and build it into the BIOS myself (but I doubt it - they are the ones who said they are waiting for the source from Intel to begin with....)

Argh, yeah, I hear you @John L. Galt .  I'm in the same boat with Eurocom.  I got my current laptop right at the EoL for this particular model and I doubt they have any plans to offer a patched BIOS any time soon (if at all).

@Digitama  and John, if you know as well; do either of you guys know exactly how these vulnerabilities are exploited?  What I mean is, based on the information available so far, can these vulnerabilities be leveraged to infect a system/execute malicious code through pretty much any process?  So for example, is this the type of vulnerability that leaves a system open to attack through a malvertisement or other remote browser based exploit, or is this the type of vulnerability where the user must execute a malicious payload of some kind such as a malicious executable and/or maliciously crafted MS Office and/or PDF document?  Basically I'm wondering about the scope of these vulnerabilities and just how useful they are known to be at this point and whether it is even feasible for an attacker to leverage them to infect a system easily remotely in an automated fashion or if this is the type of vulnerability which requires direct and/or domain level access to an endpoint and/or network because if it is the latter, then the level of risk for many, myself included, is significantly reduced since no one touches my system but me.

I am also wondering if these are the kinds of vulnerabilities which might somehow be mitigated through the use of some third party protection, similar to the way that Malwarebytes generically thwarts buffer overflow attacks against processes and modules in memory to prevent those kinds of exploits or if, due to the nature of these vulnerabilities, the only way to secure a system is through these patches from Intel and Microsoft?

Any insight either of you might offer would be helpful.  I think there are a lot of questions which aren't easily answered here, at least based on what I've personally read so far, so any light either of you can shed on the subject could prove beneficial for anyone reading through this thread.

I've done a couple of write ups on it, both here and at other forums.

 In that thread I did a small write up ( post #6 ) on the vulnerability as well as linking directly to the the the research PDFs on both vulnerabilities, as well as another PDF that explains it a bit more in layman's terms (but it is still technically heavy stuff).

The basic idea here is that the vulnerabilities themselves are usable only locally, the data (dump) that is obtained would then have to be sifted through to find relevant items that could be exploited (passwords, etc).  Not only would an end user have to execute some sort of payload (the data has to be loaded into memory, then abandoned, and finally surreptitiously accessed and collected, or dumped) and then that data would also have to be transported to a location where someone with malicious intent would be able to sift through it.  For most people that would mean additional malware (or, at the very least, seemingly innocuous connectivity software that was, in fact, sending your data somewhere you don't want it sent, or worst case scenario, piggybacking on legitimate connections to legitimate sites (that might have been surreptitiously compromised in other ways to allow malicious people to gain access to incoming packets).  The easiest would be, of course, if the data thief had direct access to your system and the ability to start running programs that would load sensitive / privileged info into the buffers - which means he pretty much has enough access to already do a lot of harm to your system.

Take all of this with a grain of salt, though - I'm on the outside looking in, and am not any sort of actual vulnerability researcher - I just gather the facts and interpret them as best as I can.  So, I may be off base, in that there may be ways that this can be exploited relatively easily, especially with legitimate tools / software (I'm guessing this is so, but I have no idea, really).

@exile360 , it is as John L. Galt said.

So far, Spectre can only be used for reading data on targeted machine. No writing "yet".

EDIT: By the way, Intel just cancelled microcode update for 45nm core 2, Bloomfield and Clarkfield. Old system be damned.

EDIT2: If you read linux kernel commit comments, Google Repotline method only won't protect Skylake against spectre. Microcode update is required. https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/1/4/432

4 hours ago, Digitama said: @exile360 , it is as John L. Galt said. So far, Spectre can only be used for reading data on targeted machine. No writing "yet". The payload delivery method = javascript on unpatched web browser. Spectre exploit "used" to work on web browsers through simple javascript execution. You just have to visit booby trapped site and somehow linger around the site for long time...... (I mean there are web operator abusing tiny sized pop-under ads that appears hidden way behind the main browser window rather instead of appearing in front of it.) The big three web browsers (edge,chrome,firefox) mitigate it by disabling SharedArrayBuffer, reducing the resolution of performance.now timer and adding some timing jitter (firefox nightly Bug 1448869). However,  few reports indicated these mitigations are useless because one can construct high precision timer through HTML5 Web Workers. Unfortunately, a lot of companies never update their web browsers .......so, between traditional phishing or "high-tech" phishing with NSA Spectre payload style.....which one do you prefer? Connectivity issue? Firewall normally let web browsers traffic through.....   EDIT: By the way, Intel just cancelled microcode update for 45nm core 2, Bloomfield and Clarkfield. Old system be damned. EDIT2: If you read linux kernel commit comments, Google Repotline method only won't protect Skylake against spectre. Microcode update is required. https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/1/4/432

Yeah, they keep throwing Bloomfield under the bus.  Repeatedly.  Which is more the misery for me as that is what I am currently running.

Thanks guys, at least there's some good news here.  It sounds like attacks against individual endpoints are pretty unlikely, at least so far so users such as myself have a lot less to worry about.

Now, as far as financial systems, game servers, cloud services and all the other online data/credentials etc. etc. and their risks, based on what I know of many of those industries and their security and patching policies, these new threats are actually the least of our worries.  I mean when was the last time you saw an ATM or POS system that wasn't running XP (or older)?  These organizations very seldom patch, very seldom keep up with new operating systems or hardware and I truly believe are victims of MAJOR data breaches and leaks far more frequently than we ever hear about on the news and that if people knew just how bad things really were, it would make the Y2K scare look like well, the non-event that it pretty much turned out to be.  It's nasty out there and these major industries that form the majority of our financial and infrastructural framework that controls far more of our everyday lives than many would be comfortable knowing are woefully ill-prepared for it and few are taking any action to secure it.  Between the organized criminal organizations and state sponsored attackers, there is little chance that far too much of our personal information and access to critical systems doesn't make it into the wrong hands, and unfortunately between Microsoft (and others) getting into bed with the NSA and exposing more customer information than ever through telemetric data collection (read SPYWARE), the concepts of privacy and security are pretty much things of the past and there are far easier ways for the bad guys to gain access to these systems, servers and networks than developing new methods based on these POCs, at least that's my opinion based on what I know of the situation.

Seriously, though, yeah, the state of the digital space we call the Internet is pretty Orwellian from any standpoint - all in the name of 'safety'.  Or profit.

3 hours ago, John L. Galt said: As opposed to the dis organized criminal organizations?  Seriously, though, yeah, the state of the digital space we call the Internet is pretty Orwellian from any standpoint - all in the name of 'safety'.  Or profit.

Well, just saw an update that kills it for me.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-we-now-wont-ever-patch-spectre-variant-2-flaw-in-these-chips/

In the Intel PDF, Bloomfield is among the CPUs for which Intel has stopped developing microcode.  I'm on a Bloomfield.  So, I'm completely left out now, as there will be no BIOS update because there is no forthcoming microcode.

Ouch, that sucks.  Oh well, I'm in no better shape really since, even though I have a supported CPU, it's too "modern" for Microsoft to support it officially in Windows 7.  Up until now I'd never heard of such a policy from a software vendor, but there you have it.  My hardware is too modern for their aging OS so they won't support a fix unless I "upgrade" to Windows 10 (which isn't an upgrade at all in my opinion).

Not gonna start the debate on that issue, that is clearly one of those "To each his/her own" topics.  I did enough of that when 7 launched and people staunchly stated that they didn't see 7 as an upgrade over XP lol.

I'm one of the lesser anomalies, older hardware with the modern OS, versus modern hardware with the older OS lol.

Hehe, indeed.  Hey, I was a Vista early adopter (pre-beta, beta, RTM).  When Vista first became available as a tech preview I installed it on my system and never looked back.  I loved the Aero Glass interface and all the new features (yes, including UAC) and to this day I still feel it's one of the best versions of Windows I've ever used.  It took me a really long time to finally move to 7, and I only did so when I bought a new system that shipped with it.  I wasn't a huge fan at first, but it's grown on me and I've gotten used to most of the differences compared to Vista.  It is nice to have some more options when it comes to UAC.  I really wish there was more to compel me to move to 8/8.1/10, but having used them and finding just how tedious doing things can be on those systems, I just can't bring myself to take the plunge on my main rig, especially with all this spyware/telemetry crap that Microsoft has been up to.  They really need to drop that, and soon, otherwise people like me will be switching to Linux.

I had an MSI board running a Northwood P4 that did not like Vista at all.  I had gotten a ẞeta version from a Micro$oft conference I had attended way back then, and I tried it out, then the final, but reverted that machine to XP because Vista ate too many resources versus XP on my limited machine.  But when 7 came out, I even stated this multiple times in the old MB forums, that 7 was what Vista should have been.  I even likened Vista to ME and 7 to XP in terms of usability.  I loved the look and feel of Vista, don't get me wrong, but it was horrible at resource management for my machine.  That same machine ran Windows 7 like a champ, though.

As for WinX, I like that I have gotten rid of all tiles (I hate the tile interface of Win8) and have a start menu that is reminiscent of Windows 7 but with a material style look to it.  In addition, grouping apps via letter allows me to find apps by clicking the actual letter group, which then fades back to the entire alphabet for me to choose from (not that I actually ever  do any of this - Since Win7 I'm addicted to using the search bar for my apps anyway lol).

See the picture of my start menu: 

Once you remove all the tiles, you can shorten the width of it to match only the actual program list width, which I have done above.

I am getting a bit annoyed with the way the new settings panel is seemingly more simplistic than the original items that were in control panel, but since control panel is still usable by me, I don't complain too loudly - I just bypass the settings panel when I need to, either using the God Mode shortcut, or else by calling specific .CPLs directly from the run dialog.

Another annoyance is that on clean builds, it defaults to install a whole bevy of applications I do not use, particularly games (I am a gamer, but I don't play any of the games that WinX installs, and those are always the first things to get uninstalled on a clean install).

As for *nix, I could easily run *nix, as I have done so in the past, even to the point of building it from scratch (which started out as me learning how to compile my own kernel in Fedora Core .. .2?  I think it was, and moving on to learning how to compile more and more apps, until I finally built a Gentoo box and compiled everything on my own).  The main reason I don't is that I support too many clients that actually run Windows 7/8/10, and using it keeps it familiar to me.  A secondary reason, though not as applicable as it used to be, is that I do all of my gaming on PC (no consoles even owned) and back in the day I could not play any of these games on *nix without some serious work using Wine when it first came out.  Nowadays, though, it seems  to be a lot easier to do, particularly with Origin, which is my original and still favorite gaming platform, and which doesn't have a Linux client (but there are instructions out there to get it working pretty easily).

Ha, you had a Northwood, my very first PC was a 2.4GHz Northwood 850E chipset based Alienware rig with 512MB (eventually upgraded to 1GB [256x4 modules]) of PC800 RDRAM with a Sapphire ATI Atlantis 9000 Pro (eventually upgraded to a stock ATI 9800 Pro plus like 4 IDE HDDs, 2 DVD drives (one RW, one R only), tons of goodies like TV tuner cards etc.  I used that rig for everything from gaming (Quake III Arena, UT2K4 etc.) to a DVR and everything in between.  I loved it.  Eventually I upgraded to a Gateway with a Pentium D 830 and maxed it out at 4GB of RAM and that was the system I put Vista on.  A dated rig to be certain, but thanks to the fact that it had a decent GPU (I upgraded the PSU and installed an ATI Radeon HD4870 in my mainboard's empty PCIe slot) and over 2GB of RAM, Vista ran pretty much like a dream.  Vista was never really slow for me at all, but that's likely because I was past that infamous 3GB threshold that it had a tendency of loving to eat with SuperFetch and whatnot (a deeply misunderstood feature in my opinion, and something I'd still miss if I didn't have an SSD at this point in Windows 7).  I ate up features like Media Center (which I'd fallen in love with on my Gateway rig since that was the version of XP it shipped with, along with the excellent Hauppage WinTV PVR 150MCE and my ATI TV Wonder 650 that I migrated over, enabling me to plug in 2 cables and record 2 separate shows at once) and the Aero Glass shell which seemed to come alive when run on a rig with a decent graphics card (an unfortunate limitation XP could never get past; after a certain point Explorer on XP is as fast as it's gonna get no matter what hardware you throw at it, while Vista seemed to have no such "ceiling").

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inSpectre Download v8

Videocards - Handy Utilities 86 Updated 2018-04-24 11:35 by Hilbert Hagedoorn

• Comments 137

slickric21: Any links to share ? It’s all fine and dandy here. (It would be incredibly easy just to flash the old bios back if anyone has issues after updating microcode)

fantaskarsef: Thanks for the link, but I'm fairly aware I'm still vulvernable because Asus does not provide any updates for the Rampage 5 Extreme besides their stupid RGB everything version. I'm actually rather pissed about it, that board cost a ton of money and they can't even give you a BIOS, yet they offer it for other boards with X99. My board was their FLAGSHIP X99 board. And you don't get any BIOS updates... that's just a bad joke. If I could I'd take my revenge on them... 😡

Agent-A01: http://www.overclock.net/t/1645289/haswell-microcode-22h-vs-23h-security-spectre-performance-and-stability-differences Several others reported the same, I would skip this update.

liveonloan: mbk1969 http://funkyimg.com/i/2BkXB.jpg My utility is 32 bit. Where can I get the 64 bit version?

OldTarget: Something strange, this tool gives me a different result than the microsoft powershell script check. With MS script I am supposed to be protected. With this tool I am not protected against Spectre. Asus Z170-Pro with BIOS 3703 and windows 10 1607 up to date.

Agent-A01: Hold your anger my young padawan. There are no stable microcode updates for broadwell/haswell available so really an update is still required by intel.

HonoredShadow: So using InSpectre utility with admin and clicking the remove meltdown protection what does it do exactly to disable it? Remove the update from Windows? Just curious how it removes it to make sure it has.

HeavyHemi: EVGA has already issued updates for all their X99 boards. Mine is fully stable, and is fully patched.

Agent-A01: Not a good idea, it seems most have whea errors(just leave hwinfo64 on while doing stuff). Anyways the fact that it's wide spread enough, it doesn't matter that a few report "i have no issues". For the general public, it's better to wait.

HeavyHemi: I saw your single link. Are there other reports besides that one? After all you're pretty much claiming every single BIOS update for millions of processors is flawed.

waltc3: So what happens if you do not patch against the Spectre or Meltdown vulnerability at the present time? Nothing, because there is no software which is exploiting either vulnerability. If there is it might be nice if some of these "security firms" would tell us about it and identify it, don't you think? I certainly do. Patching is up to the individual, but I think it only fair that people get the straight scoop on this--because if either of these vulnerabilities has been exploited by any software in the public domain I have yet to hear of it. Ergo, you cannot "get" either Spectre or Meltdown atm. You may have the theoretical proof-of-concept vulnerabilities, but as of now there is no software that exploits either--so you cannot "get" them. I will patch at the appropriate time, but I am in no hurry. Already seedy lawyers are beginning class action suits against Intel and AMD for vulnerabilities that have not been exploited and by which no one has been damaged...! IMO, the people behind the sky-is-falling names like Spectre and Meltdown are the same ones pushing the lawsuits. It's disgusting how corrupt things have gotten these days.

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