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Intel distributes microcode updates as a 2,048 (2 kilobyte) binary blob. [1] The update contains information about which processors it is designed for, so that this can be checked against the result of the CPUID instruction. [ 1 ]
A second prominent example is the set of microcode patches that Intel offered for some of their processor architectures of up to 10 years in age, in a bid to counter the security vulnerabilities discovered in their designs – Spectre and Meltdown – which went public at the start of 2018.
Intel promised microcode updates to resolve the vulnerability. [1] The microcode patches have been shown to significantly reduce the performance of some heavily-vectorized loads. [7] Patches to mitigate the effects of the vulnerability have also been created as part of the forthcoming version 6.5 release of the Linux kernel. [8]
Intel is planning to address Variant 4 by releasing a microcode patch that creates a new hardware flag named Speculative Store Bypass Disable (SSBD). [ 7 ] [ 2 ] [ 12 ] A stable microcode patch is yet to be delivered, with Intel suggesting that the patch will be ready "in the coming weeks".
Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) is hardware-based technology built into PCs with Intel vPro technology.AMT is designed to help sys-admins remotely manage and secure PCs out-of-band when PC power is off, the operating system (OS) is unavailable (hung, crashed, corrupted, missing), software management agents are missing, or hardware (such as a hard disk drive or memory) has failed.
Intel reported that they are preparing new patches to mitigate these flaws. [24] On August 14, 2018, Intel disclosed three additional chip flaws referred to as L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF). They reported that previously released microcode updates, along with new, pre-release microcode updates can be used to mitigate these flaws. [25] [26]
In response to the research, Intel released microcode updates to mitigate the issue. The updated microcode ensures that off-core accesses are delayed until sensitive operations – specifically the RDRAND , RDSEED , and EGETKEY instructions – are completed and the staging buffer has been overwritten. [ 21 ]
8086/8088 datasheet documents only base 10 version of the AAD instruction (opcode 0xD5 0x0A), but any other base will work. Later Intel's documentation has the generic form too. NEC V20 and V30 (and possibly other NEC V-series CPUs) always use base 10, and ignore the argument, causing a number of incompatibilities: 0xD5: AAM