Intel's Meltdown And Spectre Security Updates Will Hit 90% Of Its Processors By Next Week

For its part, Intel says that it is well along in deploying updates to address Meltdown and Spectre exploits that affect its processors. Intel has been working with hardware partners to deliver both firmware and software patches to help mitigate any ill-effects that could wreak havoc not only on personal systems, but also cloud-based infrastructures.

When it comes to its current progress in distributing these updates, Intel says that by this time next week, 90 percent of the processors that it has introduced over the five years will be updated. This is in addition to software patches that have already been issued (or are near release) by companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Red Hat and others.

"Intel continues to believe that the performance impact of these updates is highly workload-dependent and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time," said Intel in a statement. "While on some discrete workloads the performance impact from the software updates may initially be higher, additional post-deployment identification, testing and improvement of the software updates should mitigate that impact.

"Intel will continue to work with its partners and others to address these issues, and Intel appreciates their support and assistance. Intel encourages computer users worldwide to utilize the automatic update functions of their operating systems and other computer software to ensure their systems are up-to-date."

You can read our initial coverage of what we now know as Meltdown right here, and our expanded coverage of both Meltdown and Spectre here.