Slashdot Mirror
Intel Replaces its Buggy Fix for Skylake PCs (zdnet.com)
Intel has released new microcode to address the stability and reboot issues on systems after installing its initial mitigations for Variant 2 of the Meltdown and Spectre attacks. From a report: The stability issues caused by Intel's microcode updates resulted in Lenovo, HP, and Dell halting their deployment of BIOS updates last month as Intel worked to resolve the problems. Intel initially said unexpected reboots were only seen on Broadwell and Haswell chips, but later admitted newer Skylake architecture chips were also affected. Microsoft also said it had also seen Intel's updates cause data loss or corruption in some cases.
Sounds spot on.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
No. JavaScript is a programming language, and can a browser's JavaScript can exploit a PC/Mac/Linux machine, just like any other executable. Firefox has recently issued a fix to partially mitigate of these attacks. I've heard that the hackers are seeking technical blogs on WordPress and other easily hacked CMSs, just so they can install coin mining and other more nefarious JS hacks. I've heard of at least one JS hack that uses Spectre to scan a target devices memory.
TL;DR Browsers are just as vulnerable to Spectre and Meltdown as executable code. Visiting untrusted sites is almost on the same level as running random executables from the internet.