Windows 10: NSA Reported Security Vulnerability Patch Hardware Dependent?

My HP Compaq nc6120 runs Windows 10 1709 with all the quality updates currently offered by Windows Update. Reading about the recent NSA reported security vulnerability, I downloaded patch KB4534276 from http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/ and ran it; after about 10 minutes it said something like ‘This update is not applicable to your machine’. Does anyone know whether the vulnerability is actually hardware dependent?

Brian

:)

 

WPA2 Vulnerability Found

A small update with regards to the Microsoft fix. The fix itself is sufficient to solve the issue on Windows, even if your WiFi device has no driver update, with one caveat:

Does this security update fully address these vulnerabilities on Microsoft Platforms, or do I need to perform any additional steps to be fully protected?
The provided security updates address the reported vulnerabilities; however, when affected Windows based systems enter a connected standby mode in low power situations, the vulnerable functionality may be offloaded to installed Wi-Fi hardware. To fully address potential vulnerabilities, you are also encouraged to contact your Wi-Fi hardware vendor to obtain updated device drivers. For a listing of affected vendors with links to their documentation, review the ICASI Multi-Vendor Vulnerability Disclosure statement here: http://www.icasi.org/wi-fi-protected-access-wpa-vulnerabilities

Source: {{windowTitle}}

 

Patching windows 10 vulnerabilities

Hi,

I'm new to windows and to the community so excuse me if I miss some community guidelines.

I've installed windows 10 (build number 14390) a few days ago, and today out of paranoia run a vulnerability scan using retina community. The report came out very colorful (6 high risk vulnerabilies) . I have almost nothing installed apart from the following:

• Visual Studio Code
• Visual Studio Community edition
• Cmder
• MongoDb/Nodejs with some Npm modules
• VLC

I was confused by the fact that almost all the vulnerabilities were Microsoft Office or Microsoft VB6 related and I don't have any of that installed.

Any idea where should I look for patches or how to proceed to fix those problems?

The report included links for Microsoft security bulletins related to each problem but I could not find any software I have installed in order to update it.

I think it goes without saying that I install all the updates Microsoft update finds daily.

Thank you for your time.

 

Mitigating the last "L1 terminal fault" vulnerabilities - possible or not?

I've read that, thanks.

If what you saying is true, this is a departure from how previous vulnerabilities were described, and just adds confusion. The previous way of doing it made far more sense, you could see if the necessary hardware (microcode) was there and if the mitigation
is enabled&working.

With this formulation, it suggests that the hardware is vulnerable, and that's it. Yes you applied the mitigations, but... hardware is still found to be vulnerable.

The whole reason we apply these mitigations is to patch the vulnerable hardware and achieve a non-vulnerable state. You don't want to see that you're still vulnerable with all mitigations in place.