Different motherboard brands including GIGABYTE, ASUS, and MSI releases updates against Meltdown and Spectre. The implementation of safety and precautionary measures are in accordance with Intel’s call to safeguard customers against security vulnerabilities on systems utilizing Speculative Execution and indirect branch prediction. The vulnerability was disclosed by Intel on the 3rd of January, 2018 affecting both Intel-based and non-Intel based systems.
About the Vulnerabilities
The first two vulnerabilities, CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5715, are collectively known as Spectre. The third vulnerability, CVE-2017-5754, is known as Meltdown. The vulnerabilities are all variants of the same attack and differ in the way that speculative execution is exploited. A dedicated website has been launched to provide information on the said vulnerabilities, visit https://meltdownattack.com/
ASUS
ASUS released BIOS updates for its consumer motherboards that support 6th, 7th or 8th Generation Intel Core processors or Intel Core X-series processors for X99 and X299 platforms. Users simply need to download and install the latest BIOS to update affected platforms. See affected ASUS motherboards here.
ASUS also releases updates for its Server and Workstation Motherboards which will also require a BIOS update. See affected models and BIOS update information here.
GIGABYTE
GIGABYTE also releases BIOS updates for models that support 6th/7th/8th generation Intel Core processors and X99/X299 platform. Users can get more information on the BIOS update at GIGABYTE’s dedicated MicroSite.
MSI
MSI also releases BIOS updates for the Z370 Series motherboards. Updates for MSI’s X299-series, 200-series, 100-series and X99-series motherboards are said to be underway. Visit the MSI website for more information.
ASRock
No official statement from ASRock regarding BIOS updates against Meltdown and Spectre. However, there are some X299 models with available BIOS update to counter security vulnerability such as the X299 Taichi XE, Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9, and X299 Taichi. BIOS updates for other models in the X299/X99 and 200 Series motherboards is likely in progress.
Update: January 18, 2018
ASRock now officially releases BIOS updates to counter vulnerabilities for ASRock 100/200/Z370/X299 Series motherboards. ASRock also creates a dedicted microsite for the status of BIOS updates for the brands motherboards at http://www.asrock.com/Microsite/SA00088/
EVGA
There’s also no official statement from EVGA regarding BIOS updates to counter Meltdown and Spectre but there seems to be available BIOS updates containing updated CPU microcode for Intel Security for EVGA’s X299 and Intel 200 Series motherboards. Download the latest BIOS version at https://www.evga.com/support/download/
