How about a Linux Patch that reports binary blobs wirh no source AS __ Security Vulnerabilities __
Or are we not allowed to criticize the back doors that hackers gain access to.
So the patch is just copying the existing warning to a standard location?
The real thing is: can you update the microcode of older CPUs? If not then it’s a marketing strategy.
It sounds like the criterion is “is newer microcode available”. So it doesn’t look like a marketing strategy to sell new CPUs.
I mean, it’s still good to know if you’re vulnerable right (for sake of discussion)?
The article does specify that it would report if the newest version of the firmware for the CPU family is not installed, so it doesn’t seem like this is that particular kind of BS.
The Linux kernel would maintain a list of the latest Intel microcode versions for each CPU family, which is based on the data from the Intel microcode GitHub repository. In turn this list would need to be kept updated with new Linux kernel releases and as Intel pushes out new CPU microcode files.
Sounds like that would be outdated for everyone without a rolling distro.
Yeah, methinks this will be one of those alerts pretty much everyone will be like “yeah, yeah, I know” and click to silence those notifications.
Stable distros can and will backport security fixes. Good ones that is.
How does it know if the microcode is outdated?
