The Intel Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge processors were the only ones left to protect against the Specter and Meltdown vulnerabilities. And now the problem has been solved with the release of a specific patch for these chips.
Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge already have a solution for Specter and Meltdown
Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge already have their patch in front of Specter
Specter and Meltdown are two severe vulnerabilities. That which are present in all or almost all processors today, although Intel chips are the most vulnerable. The initial reaction of Intel was to launch a patch mitigating these vulnerabilities quickly. Also, that caused many problems, so it had to be removed. And users have had to wait for the arrival of new patches that would be much more refined.
Intel has made available a patch mitigating the Meltdown and Specter vulnerabilities to users of Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge processors. And in this way, all Core processors launched by the company since 2011 have been covered before these severe security problems. Of course, the Celeron and Pentium variants are also compatible with these patches.
Now the question is whether Intel will also protect the users of processors of previous generations. Such as the Nehalem that arrived in 2008. Also, Intel would already be working on a new patch for these chips. Also, that is still used by many users today.
We will have to wait for the Ice Lake processors of the year 2019. So that we can consider these two vulnerabilities are solutions at the CPU design level.