Update: This story has been up to date at 12:04 PM to incorporate Intel’s clarification of the brand new microcode.

If your PC contains an Intel processor, it would seemingly obtain a mysterious new replace initially pushed out by the corporate on Friday.

Three issues about this launch are considerably regarding. First, Intel launched the brand new CPU microcode as an “out of band” or unscheduled launch. Second, it covers nearly all the things Intel has in the marketplace right this moment — courting all the best way again to the 2017 8th-gen Core (“Coffee Lake”) chips. (The code itself is on the Intel GitHub web page, itemizing the entire affected processors as much as and together with Intel’s most up-to-date Thirteenth-gen Core chips. Intel Xeons are affected, too.) Finally, the secretive and sudden nature of this patch raises eyebrows.

You don’t must try to obtain and set up this code; motherboard distributors and even Microsoft itself will incorporate the safety launch inside updates for their very own merchandise. (Microsoft points its personal {hardware} drivers, particularly for the Surface notebooks and tablets it produces.) You can most likely anticipate that the brand new code will present up in a Windows replace or a BIOS replace from the board producer itself.

Like Microsoft, Intel usually publishes vulnerability information on what’s referred to as “Patch Tuesday,” or the primary Tuesday of the month. (As an instance, Intel launched information noting that its Smart Campus Android app might be used as a handheld Denial of Service (DOS) mechanism. Fun!) The incontrovertible fact that this code launch wasn’t scheduled on that day signifies that Intel wasn’t conscious of the vulnerability then, and felt it was important sufficient to launch a patch on Friday fairly than ready for subsequent month.

So what’s all of the fuss about? We don’t know, though Intel did reply.

“Microcode 20230512 update released on May 12, 2023 does not contain any security updates and the note, [INTEL-SA-NA], is meant to convey that there are no applicable (Not Applicable) security updates in the package,” an Intel spokeswoman stated in an electronic mail. “The microcode update includes functional updates only (also documented in product erratum).”

So whereas we nonetheless don’t know what the microcode truly fixes, Intel’s response provides us a greater concept that the microcode isn’t truly a repeat of the Meltdown and Spectre bugs of 2018. That’s a aid.