Wait! Intel asks customers to delay security patches for Meltdown, Spectre

Dive Brief:

Intel may be issuing a patch for its patches following the disclosure of the Meltdown and Spectre flaws. The new patch is for the initial firmware updates, which caused customer complaints about "higher system reboots," according to a company announcement. The initial updates primarily affected systems with Intel Broadwell and Haswell CPUs. Further updates will be distributed as needed.
The company made the announcement following reports from the Wall Street Journal Thursday. The Journal obtained a confidential document sent to Intel customers that said to "delay additional deployments of these microcode updates," or firmware updates. Intel's document was sent to computer vendors and cloud providers, but the company maintains the new bugs are "unrelated to security."
Prior to Thursday's announcement, Intel highlighted that the impact of initial patches on 6th, 7th and 8th Generation Intel Core processor platforms on Windows 10 was as "expected" with minimal performance issues. The 7th and 8th generation platforms performed to similar standards, though some users on the 8th generation platform may have seen a 10% decline in performance if using "complex JavaScript operations" with web applications.

Dive Insight:

Despite initial reports, Intel's chips were not the only ones susceptible to the Meltdown and Spectre flaws. However, the recovery process for Intel is a little more turbulent than the company would like.

Meltdown hit Intel chips dating back the last two decades. The company said it would have patches for 90% of all flaws by Jan. 15, and the rest of the patches will be issued by the end of the month.

Much of the scrutiny comes from Intel's resistance to declare a recall on the vulnerable chips even though the only permanent solution to the vulnerabilities is replacing all CPU hardware. Additionally, Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich sold off company stock at a poor time, even though the arrangement was on an "automated schedule."

Krzanich repeated much of the company's stance at CES this week, though he noticeably left out an apology. Perhaps public disapproval can be seen in the 4.7% decline in Intel's stocks since the flaws' Jan. 3 reveal, according to U.S. News and World Report.