Microsoft has released a new cumulative update for Windows 10 which sports the “KB4482887” version number. The update is developed for the 1809 build of Windows 10 and it comes with software improvements for Retpoline Spectre mitigation, a fix for the Action Center bug and many other bug fixes.
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Windows 10 KB4482887 Cumulative Update
As previously mentioned, the new update is available for Windows 10 October 2018 Update (build 1809) and it is being rolled out OTA (over the air). The update can be manually triggered by following the next steps: Settings – Update & Security – Windows Update. With that said, let’s go over the main changes that the new update brings.
Retpoline Spectre v2 Mitigations
Google announced back in January 2018 that there are some CPU software vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown. These vulnerabilities make it possible for side channels to access the memory of other programs that they wouldn’t normally be able to do it. Therefore, the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities could potentially make it possible for “bad actors” to access important data such as decryption keys, sensitive email info and master passwords.
The two vulnerabilities are caused by a hardware design of the CPUs themselves and the hardware manufacturers responsible had to release the microcode updates so that the vulnerabilities could be patched. Fortunately, the new update from Microsoft brings software improvements to Windows 10 that take care of the Retpoline Spectre and Meltdown vulnerability issues.
Action Center Bug Fix
Another important software tweak that the new Windows 10 update brings takes care of a known Action Center bug. This bug would make it so that the Action Center briefly appears on the left side of the screen and then move to the right side. This might not be such a major issue, but it proved to be quite annoying. Fortunately, Microsoft patched it.