Intel CPUs Are Getting Mystery “Critical” Security Updates

Intel is about to announce a security issue with some of its CPUs. The company has released “critical” CPU microcode updates that fix an undisclosed severe security issue. They’re rolling out to Linux systems, and updates for Windows PCs likely aren’t far behind.

The updates, classified as “critical,” were first spotted by Phoronix. Intel will likely provide more information soon and the microcode updates should make their way to Windows Update shortly, too. The details of the security flaw have not yet been publicly revealed.

As for which processors are affected, updates were discovered for Intel Whiskey Lake and Tiger Lake CPUs, though there could be others. We only know about the two discovered by Phoronix for sure. We’ll have to wait for updates to release to the masses to find out exactly which chips have the vulnerability.

Even though the patch was spotted on Linux, the folks at Phoronix did its testing on a Dell XPS with Linux, but Dell issued “urgent” Windows firmware binaries for the same computer around the same dates. Your PC manufacturer may provide fixes for your system, but hopefully, Microsoft will roll them out to all affected PCs soon.

Depending on the urgency, we could see the update pushed during the next Patch Tuesday in February 2022, or Windows could issue an Out of Band update to address them sooner.