In the words of Linux creator Linus Torvalds, Intel’s attempts to mitigate against the Spectre flaw have been “complete and utter garbage.” It’s hard to argue with that statement, especially now that Microsoft has been forced to issue an out-of-cycle emergency Windows update to remove the patches, which were causing reboots, stability issues, and, in worse cases, loss or corruption of data.
Intel admitted that its patches for Spectre variant 2 were causing random system restarts and recommended that users stop installing them. But it wasn’t as forthcoming when it came to warnings of “data loss and corruption,” which were found in its recent fourth-quarter results.
