Third-Party Antivirus Software Could Block Security Updates

• Windows systems running incompatible third-party antivirus software could fail to receive recent and future Windows security updates.
• Organizations running third-party antivirus software should update as soon as possible to a compatible version or product.

Meltdown and Spectre are recently discovered security vulnerabilities that exploit flaws present in most CPU designs. Some third-party antivirus (AV) software may be incompatible with the Jan. 2018 security update that addresses Meltdown and Spectre on Windows. Windows systems with AV software that does not assert its compatibility will not receive the Jan. 2018 security update, nor any subsequent security updates from Microsoft.

Some Antivirus Software Incompatible with Update

Security updates released in Jan. 2018 to mitigate Meltdown and Spectre hardware vulnerabilities make changes to the Windows OS that could lead AV software using unsupported system calls to cause crashes. The vulnerabilities, and security updates, impact both client and server versions of Windows.