Intel initially promised to fix the Meltdown and Spectre hardware vulnerabilities in all of its processors, but recently stated that a fix would not be possible and some chips would no longer receive updates.
The company has stopped the process of patching and updating a total of 10 product families covering more than 200 processor models.
"After a thorough investigation into the microarchitecture and microcode capabilities for these products, Intel has decided not to release microcode updates for them for one or more reasons," the company said.
There are three reasons why Intel did not patch the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities in some of its affected products:
- Micro-architectural features that preclude practical implementation of features that mitigate Variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715)
- Limited commercially available system software support
- Based on customer input, most of these products are implemented as “closed systems” and are therefore expected to have a lower probability of exposure to these vulnerabilities.
In other words, Intel is saying that it doesn't make sense to continue developing new microcode updates to address the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities in some processors because IT administrators use them offline. In this context, they are not exposed to attacks that would rely on these flaws, so a security update to address them is not required.
Meanwhile, Intel has released its i9 PC, which is one of the first to come without the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. The company says that all future generations will be completely safe from the two hardware.
