Newsletter Archives

• Is firmware patching important?

  Posted on May 9, 2022 at 02:42 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Firmware patching has always been fraught with concern.

  Until very recently, applying firmware updates often meant launching the update process from a DOS prompt. You often received warnings that if your computer lost power during the process, your machine might be bricked. This is such a daunting thought that, for servers, I would often update the firmware when I initially installed the server and never touch it again.

  But firmware is nothing more than software, and — like every other kind of software these days — attackers find vulnerabilities in firmware. Recently, researchers found security issues in Lenovo consumer notebook firmware.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.19.0, 2022-05-09).

  On Security Firmware, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Surface firmware

• Microsoft promises firmware patches for Surface devices to nullify Meltdown and Spectre

  Posted on January 4, 2018 at 20:19 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  There’s a new post out from the Surface team: Surface Guidance for Customers and Partners: Protect your devices against the recent chip-related security vulnerability. It says:

  Microsoft will provide UEFI updates for the following devices:

  Surface Pro 3
  Surface Pro 4
  Surface Book
  Surface Studio
  Surface Pro Model 1796
  Surface Laptop
  Surface Pro with LTE Advanced
  Surface Book 2

  The updates will be available for the above devices running Windows 10 Creators Update (OS version 15063) and Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (OS version 16299). You will be able to receive these updates through Windows Update or by visiting the Microsoft Download Center.

  Apparently if you aren’t running Win10 1703 or 1709, you’re out of luck.

  Annoyingly, the post speaks in the future tense. I don’t see any notice of availability on the official release pages for those devices. (See, for example, the Surface Pro 2017 page, which lists the last firmware/driver update as Dec. 6.) I also don’t see any of the patches in the Update Catalog.

  Windows Patches/Security Meltdown, Spectre, Surface firmware