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NOW SpinRite 6.1 – Fast and useful for spinning and solid state mass storage!
Easily examine and understand any Windows
system's hardware and software capability to
prevent Meltdown and Spectre attacks.
Now determines and displays whether Intel has produced
a microcode update patch for the Spectre vulnerability.
(See the Release #8 comments below.)
(This 126k app is compatible with ALL versions of Windows and WINE.)
File stats for: InSpectre
Last Updated:
Size: 135k Feb 27, 2024 at 21:41
(197.23 days ago) Downloads/day: 406
Total downloads: 3,010,846 Current Rank: 3
Historical Rank: 7
“InSpectre” is an easy to use & understand utility designed to clarify
the many overlapping and confusing aspects of any Windows
system's ability to prevent the Meltdown and Spectre attacks.
As the application's textual display says...
In early 2018 the PC industry was rocked by the revelation that common processor
design features, widely used to increase the performance of modern PCs, could be
abused to create critical security vulnerabilities. The industry quickly
responded, and is responding, to these Meltdown and Spectre threats by updating
operating systems, motherboard BIOSes and CPU firmware.
Protection from these two significant vulnerabilities requires updates to every
system's hardware–its BIOS which reloads updated processor firmware–and its
operating system–to use the new processor features. To further complicate
matters, newer processors contain features to minimize the performance impact of
these important security improvements. But older processors, lacking these newer
features, will be significantly burdened and system performance will suffer
under some workloads.
This InSpectre utility was designed to clarify every system's current situation
so that appropriate measures can be taken to update the system's hardware and
software for maximum security and performance.
Frequently Asked Question
Q:
On some of the computers, one or the other or both of the Enable/Disable
Protection buttons are grayed out and disabled so that they cannot be used.
What's going on?
A:
Either of the Protection Enable/Disable buttons will be disabled when the
button's respective vulnerability cannot be enabled or disabled by its user. For
example, Since AMD processors have never been subject to the Meltdown
vulnerability, the Meltdown button will be disabled because there's no way for
its protection to be disabled. This would also be true (in the other direction)
when a system has an Intel processor and any version of Windows that has not
been updated for the Meltdown vulnerability. In that case the system is
vulnerable and there's no way for the button to make it invulnerable.
Similarly, any computer whose firmware has not been updated will be vulnerable
to Spectre attacks and, again, the button cannot make it invulnerable.
So, InSpectre will enable those buttons when the system's conditions allow the
operating system to protect against the respective vulnerability, but the user
may wish to disable that protection, where possible.
Release History
* Release #1 — Initial release:
The first release was triggering false-positive warnings from 3rd-party
anti-virus scanners. This was probably due to a registry key the application
uses to enable/disable the Meltdown and Spectre protections. Also, the
language used in one of the text-explainers was confusing and
self-contradictory.
* Release #2 — Second try:
This second release hides its use of the registry key that was upsetting so
many anti-virus scanners. A pass through Virus Total shows that made a huge
difference. And that confusing paragraph was rewritten into two, which are
now presented more correctly. Let's see how this second try fares.
* Release #3 — Raw Technical Data Display:
InSpectre's more technically inclined users have asked for more information
about how InSpectre makes its decisions. Non-Windows users have also asked
for that information so that InSpectre could be run on Linux and MacOS
machines (under WINE) to check the non-Windows machine's CPU support. As
shown to the right, InSpectre release #3 adds a “Show Technical Details” item
in the system control menu at the upper-left corner of the app. Click on the
little “Spectre” icon and select the “Show Tech Details” item to display the
raw data obtained by InSpectre's analysis of its operating environment.
* Release #4 — Silent System Probe Option:
When InSpectre is launched with the string “probe” in its command line, its
Windows user interface will be suppressed and InSpectre will act like a
command-line utility. It will assess its hosting system's status, then
immediately terminate itself returning a decimal exitcode which encodes the
eight “trouble bits” shown below, which itemizes any trouble. Therefore, for
example, an exitcode of zero (0) is returned only by a fully secure system.
Decimal
ValueTrouble Itemization 1OS is not aware of the Meltdown vulnerability 2OS
is not aware of the Spectre vulnerability 4The system is vulnerable to
Meltdown 8The system is vulnerable to Spectre 16CPU does not support Spectre
(microcode not updated) 32CPU does not support low-overhead Meltdown
protection 64Meltdown protection disabled by registry setting 128Spectre
protection disabled by registry setting
Since InSpectre's exitcode is the sum of the values shown above which are
true for any specific system, the table above can be used to decompose
InSpectre's probe-mode exitcode to determine the system's trouble.
This zip archive: “InSpectre-Probe-Samples.zip” contains sample batch file
and powershell script files for capturing InSpectre's exitcode. Note that an
exitcode is not a “printed” output from the program—it won't be printed onto
a command console. It is a value that can be obtained by another script or
program which executes the program after it terminates.
* Release #5 — Copy results to system clipboard:
Earlier releases of InSpectre did not encourage copying the program's
displays out of the application. Any region of the results can now be marked
with the mouse and copied to the system's shared clipboard by using the
standard Ctrl-C key combination. The application's system menu (under the
small Spectre icon at the upper-left corner of the application window) also
now contains a “Copy to Clipboard” option which will either copy a marked
region or the entire textual content if no region is marked for copying.
* Release #6 — Worked around a Microsoft bug and more . . .
Users of an earlier version of Windows 10 (version 1703 ‑ the non-Fall
Creator's Update) reported that InSpectre did not believe that their system
had been patched for the Spectre vulnerability. Upon analysis, a bug was
discovered in that version of Windows which affected the way 32-bit
applications, such as InSpectre, viewed the system. This was apparently fixed
in the later “Fall Creator's Update” (version 1709) but not in the earlier
version. A 64-bit “probe” was added to the 6th release of InSpectre to work
around this bug in version 1703 so that InSpectre would accurately reflect
any system's true protection.
And, while we were at it, the language presented in the summary was changed
from “vulnerable” to “protected” so that “YES” was the good answer and “NO!”
was the bad answer. :)
* Release #7 — Added the display of the system's CPUID . . .
Microsoft will be making Intel (and perhaps AMD?) processor microcode patches
available for the most persistent Spectre Variant 2 vulnerability. These will
become available over time as they become available from Intel and they will
apparently need to be manually installed by interested Windows users. It is
not yet clear whether Microsoft will be willing or interested in making these
patches available for earlier versions of its Windows operating systems, but
we can hope.
The patches are applicable to specific CPU models only, which are identified
by each chip's “CPUID.” For this reason, InSpectre now prominently displays
the system's processor CPUID at the top of its system summary.
Please check this page on Microsoft's website to see whether a microcode
patch for your CPU, determined by its CPUID, is available at any time:
KB4090007: Intel microcode updates
You can also use your favorite Internet search engine to search for the
string “KB4090007” which should always take to that page and to its related
Microsoft Update Catalog page to obtain the specific Windows update.
* Release #8 — Now shows whether an Intel microcode patch is (ever) available
for Spectre.
Intel has finished designing microcode update patches for its processors. On
April 2nd, 2018, they announced that processors that have not yet been
patched will never be patched. Their full statement is available in this PDF
document. In that document, Intel specifies which of their many processors do
have patches and which of their more recent processors will never receive
updated firmware. Now that the industry has this information, this 8th
release of InSpectre incorporates that list of CPUIDs and displays whether
microcode firmware updates exist for the system's Intel CPU.
InSpectre in the News
* “Gibson releases InSpectre vulnerability and performance checker”
Martin Brinkmann, writing for GHacks.net, was the first out of the gate with
an announcement of InSpectre.
* “InSpectre: See whether your PC's protected from Meltdown and Spectre”
Woody Leonard wrote a very nice piece on InSpectre for his column in
ComputerWorld.
* “Is your PC vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre CPU exploits? InSpectre tells
you”
PC World's terrific coverage by Senior Editor, Brad Chacos.
* “InSpectre will quickly check if your PC is vulnerable to Meltdown and
Spectre”
Nice coverage of InSpectre by Windows Central.
* “Tip: Make Sure Your PC is Safe from Meltdown and Spectre”
Paul Thurrott weighs in with a nice summary write up of InSpectre.
* “Meltdown and Spectre: Is your PC vulnerable?”
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes writing for ZDNet: A new app gives you a simple
overview of your system's vulnerability status, as well as what kind of
performance hit the patches might be having.
* “Use InSpectre to see if you're protected from Meltdown and Spectre”
A great short write up about InSpectre by The Tech Report.
* “Download InSpectre to check for CPU performance issues”
Another nice notice of InSpectre.
* “InSpectre Meltdown and Spectre Check tool released by GRC”
Nice summary coverage by Mark Tyson of HEXUS.
* “InSpectre Makes It Easy To See If Your PC Is Vulnerable To Spectre And
Meltdown”
Another nice summary of InSpectre by Shane McGlaun of HotHardware.
* “InSpectre is a Free Lightweight Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerability and
Performance Checker”
Jon Sutton for Game Debate wrote a very nice summary of InSpectre's operation
and pointed people to GRC for the download.
* “InSpectre checks for Meltdown and Spectre breaches”
Another nice notice of InSpectre.
3rd-Party download sites. WARNING!! We CANNOT vouch for these!!
* Major Geeks: “InSpectre Release 2”
* Softpedia: “Find out whether your system is currently vulnerable to Spectre
and Meltdown attacks in just one click using this straightforward app.”
* Guru3D: “Download: inSpectre Meltdown and Spectre Check tool for Windows”
* FindMySoft: “InSpectre - Protect yourself against Meltdown and Spectre”
A very nice review by Frederick Barton of FindmySoft... but 3rd-party
download sites are worrisome due to the potential for abuse.
* TechSpot: “Easily examine and understand any Windows system's hardware and
software capability to prevent Meltdown and Spectre attacks.”
Gibson Research Corporation is owned and operated by Steve Gibson. The contents
of this page are Copyright (c) 2024 Gibson Research Corporation. SpinRite,
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NanoProbe, and any other indicated trademarks are registered trademarks of
Gibson
Research Corporation, Laguna Hills, CA, USA. GRC's web and customer privacy
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Last Edit: May 03, 2018 at 18:27 (2,323.37 days ago)Viewed 611 times per day