Technical Articles & Industry Trends

Teguar's Response to Spectre and Meltdown

Teguar Computers is aware that the recent computer security issues uncovered with the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities affect many of our products sold. These vulnerabilities are inherent with several Intel, AMD, and ARM CPUs. Bios and firmware changes are being made for current Teguar Computer hardware orders in process to negate any issues from Spectre or Meltdown. If you have further questions please contact support@teguar.com

The first step that our customers can take to mitigate these issues are the security patches released by Microsoft. If automatic update is running on your PCs, then you do not need to take any action and you most likely already have the patch. Here are direct links to the patches that you can download to ensure you are protected.

 Direct Links to Security Patches

OS Security Update	Operating System Installed
KB4056892	Windows 10 – Version 1709
KB4056891	Windows 10 – Version 1703
KB4056890	Windows 10 – Version 1607
KB4056888	Windows 10 – Version 1511
KB4056893	Windows 10  - IOT LTSB
KB4056898	Windows 8.1 and 8.1 Embedded
KB4056895	Windows 8.1 and 8.1 Embedded
KB4056897	Windows 7, Windows Embedded Standard 7, and POSReady 7
KB4056894	Windows 7, Windows Embedded Standard 7, and POSReady 7
KB4056568	Internet Explorer 11 Update

If you are unsure of the exact version of OS installed, you can try to install all patches (starting at the top) as the patch will not run if it is not meant for your OS. You can also open up the start menu and type “winver” and press enter. This will display your OS version.

Teguar will also be implementing BIOS level microcode patches as they become available from Intel and are validated on our hardware. These patches will be included on new product shipments.  Below is a list of our computers that may be affected:

 Affected CPUs

Intel® Processor	Code name	Teguar Model Names
Intel® 3rd Generation Processor	Ivy Bridge	TX-30XX
Intel® 4th Generation Processor	Haswell	TX-30XX
Intel® 5th Generation Processor	Broadwell	TX-31XX
Intel® 6th Generation Processor	Skylake	TX-50XX
Intel® 7th Generation Processor	Kaby Lake	TX-51XX
Intel® Atom® Processor	Cedarview	TX-1210, TX-16XX, TX-20XX
Intel® Atom® Processor	Valley View, platform Bay Trail	TX-40XX
Intel® Atom® Processor	Cherrytrail, platform Braswell	TX-43XX

Solutions for previously sold products very by product line, please contact support@teguar.com for your specific product recommended solution and a timeline of when it will be available.

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Reference: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/facts-about-side-channel-analysis-and-intel-products.html

For more information please go to Microsoft Security Advisory ADV180002 | Guidance to protect against the speculative execution side-channel vulnerabilities