Warning: Microsoft Fix Freezes Some PCs With AMD Chips[source: databreachtoday]

09 Jan 2018

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Organizations are scrambling to put in place fixes for the Meltdown and Spectre flaws as makers of operating systems, cloud services, mobile devices and more start to release patches.

Meltdown and Spectre are flaws in many microprocessors that attackers could use to steal kernel data, including passwords and encryption keys. Security experts say all organizations should put mitigations in place as soon as possible, preferably starting with browsers, because attackers could use malicious websites to try and exploit the flaws.

Numerous operating systems require updates as well, including Apple Mac OS X and iOS devices, Google’s Android and Microsoft Windows. Microsoft’s Windows fix for the flaws arrived Wednesday in a KB4056892 security update for Windows 10.

Some Windows users running devices with CPUs built by AMD, however, report that Microsoft’s fix has been freezing their systems.

In a lengthy discussion thread on Microsoft’s site, users running systems with AMD’s Athlon chips report that after installing KB4056892, their machines fail to fully boot. Some are able to restore systems using a previous restore point. Even if that is successful, however, the operating system quickly attempts to reinstall the PC-freezing patch, they say.

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