[clug] Four MDS attacks have been disclosed today [May 14, 2019] - Zombieload

George at Clug Clug at goproject.info
Fri May 17 14:19:20 UTC 2019


Hi,


It seems this is like a monthly occurrence. A new CPU bug, and after
patches, CPUs run a bit slower, again. 



Do you know of any others that have been disclosed recently.



https://www.zdnet.com/article/patch-status-for-the-new-mds-attacks-against-intel-cpus/


Earlier today, a group of academics and security researchers disclosed
a new vulnerability class impacting Intel CPUs.



Known as Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) attacks, these
vulnerabilities allow threat actors to retrieve data that is being
processed inside Intel CPUs, even from processes an attacker's code
should not have access.



Four MDS attacks have been disclosed today [1], with Zombieload being
considered the most dangerous of them all:



	* CVE-2018-12126 - Microarchitectural Store Buffer Data Sampling
(MSBDS) [codenamed Fallout] 
	* CVE-2018-12127 - Microarchitectural Load Port Data Sampling (MLPDS)
	* CVE-2018-12130 - Microarchitectural Fill Buffer Data Sampling
(MFBDS) [codenamed Zombieload, or RIDL] 
	* CVE-2018-11091 - Microarchitectural Data Sampling Uncacheable
Memory (MDSUM)


https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/intels-zombieload-fix-may-slow-processors-by-19-percent-a-12484
"The safest workaround to prevent this extremely powerful attack is
running trusted and untrusted applications on different physical
machines," they say. "If this is not feasible in given contexts,
disabling hyperthreading completely represents the safest mitigation.
This does not, however, close the door on attacks on system call
return paths that leak data from kernel space to user space."


https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MDS-Kernel-Fixes
A Slew Of Stable Kernel Updates Issued For Addressing MBS / Zombieload
Vulnerabilities Written by Michael Larabel [2] in Linux Kernel [3] on
14 May 2019 at 02:22 PM EDT. Add A Comment [4]


Following today's disclosure of the new MDS vulnerabilities [5]
affecting Intel CPUs, a slew of new Linux kernel stable releases have
been issued. 

Greg Kroah-Hartman has issued Linux 5.1.2, 5.0.16, 4.19.43, 4.14.119,
and 4.9.176 with these now public mitigation patches that pair with
Intel's CPU microcode for mitigating this latest set of speculative
execution side-channel vulnerabilities. 



https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/14/intel-chip-flaws-patches-released/
Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla release patches for
ZombieLoad chip flaws
Zack Whittaker at zackwhittaker / 2 days ago


https://www.extremetech.com/computing/291429-intel-unveils-clear-linux-os-update-at-open-source-summit
Intel Unveils Clear Linux OS Update at Open Source Summit
    By Joel Hruska on May 15, 2019 at 11:02 am 
For the past 16 years, Intel has held an annual open-source-focused
technology summit called, appropriately enough, the Open Source
Technology Summit. If you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of
the OSTS, the answer is simple: The company has kept the event private
and self-focused until now. This year, it’s opening the event to
customers, industry partners, and the press more generally.

One of the major unveils that’s happening with the OSTS this week is
a new installer and storefront for Intel’s own Clear Linux
distribution. If you haven’t heard of Clear Linux, Intel describes
the OS as “an open source, rolling release Linux distribution
optimized for performance and security, from the Cloud to the Edge,
designed for customization and manageability.” Forbes has covered
this Linux distro and its recent improvements, while Phoronix has
detailed performance breakdowns that show Clear Linux as the, well,
clear winner in a range of benchmarks across Linux distros.



https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/464532/rolling-back-intel-microcode-updates-and-computer-speed













Links:
------
[1]
https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-cpus-impacted-by-new-zombieload-side-channel-attack/
[2] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=michaellarabel
[3] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_topic&q=Linux Kernel
[4] https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=41
[5]
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microarch-Data-Sampling


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