Intel
This guest post by Bjørn Anders Jørgensen, Senior Systems Consultant Basefarm, first appeared on LinkedIn.
Before you start on this rather long post, have a go at part #1:
tl;dr #
This is a long read. To get to the juicy part on how Intel potentially shipped pre-release microcode to partners, skip to section 3. The short, short version is that the official Intel microcode update contains newer microcode for Skylake-SP and Kaby Lake/Coffe Lake than what currently is shipping from VMware/HPE/DellEMC etc.
This guest post by Bjørn Anders Jørgensen, Senior Systems Consultant Basefarm, first appeared on LinkedIn.
Disclaimer: This is a report based on current development as of 7. January, the situation is changing by the hour so read this opinion piece with that in hindsight.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last week you will know by now that there is a universal design flaw in most modern microprocessors, leaving them vulnerable to a serious information disclosure problem that requires updates to all operating systems and processors.
If you are not familiar with the issue, start here: Meltdown and Spectre
Jan Wildeboer also has a comprehensive timeline: How we got to #Spectre and #Meltdown A Timeline
The issue has been known by Intel at least since June, and has been under embargo while everyone has been hammering out code to mitigate the threat and be ready when the embargo was lifted.