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Like most other operating system vendors, Microsoft has provided security updates for Windows that will prevent exploitation of the mentioned Meltdown and Specter vulnerabilities. In particular, the Specter family with vulnerabilities has caused headaches because protection can often exceed performance.
It is now clear that Microsoft will use a technique that can significantly reduce the performance of these security patches. Maybe something special is that the technique was developed by Google.
Read also: Microsoft with new patches on vulnerable Intel processors
Retpoline
It was not until shortly after the vulnerabilities became public in early 2018 that Google introduced a technique to limit speculative behavior to the point of preventing attacks exploiting one of the two vulnerabilities. Origin of Specter (Branch Target Target / CVE-2017-5715), while minimizing performance loss.
The technique is called Retpoline. How it works is mentioned here.
Retpoline has been implemented, among other things, in several Linux-based operating systems, but not in current Windows editions. It is now clear that Microsoft is working to put it in place.
In spring
In a Twitter post Mehmet Iyigun, mentioned in MSPoweruser, confirms in the Microsoft Windows / Azure kernel team that Retpoline has been implemented and enabled in the test versions of Windows versions that will be released in the spring of 2019.
Microsoft is also using something they call "optimization of the import", which will further reduce the impact on performance due to indirect cold in kernel mode. Currently, Microsoft has not said what it is.
– Combined reduces both effects on Spectrum v2 performance in terms of noise level in most scenarios, writes Iyigun.
This is of course good news for users of the latest Microsoft operating systems. But nothing indicates that the company will implement Retpoline in its old operating systems, which are still used by many people.
Have you read this? Intel has decided to remove the Specter vulnerability in many processors
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