Spectre and Meltdown Vulnerability

Summary

Quantum has been made aware of multiple microarchitectural (hardware) implementation issues affecting many modern microprocessors, requiring updates to operating system software in combination with a microcode update. There are 3 known CVEs related to this issue in combination with Intel, AMD, and ARM architectures. Affected operating systems include recent versions of Linux (Red Hat, CentOS, SUSE), Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS.

An unprivileged attacker can use these flaws to bypass conventional memory security restrictions in order to gain read access to privileged system memory that would otherwise be inaccessible. In order for this exploit to be used, an attacker needs to run malicious code on the target processor. This is a local system exploit, not something that can be directly attacked over a network.

NIST has assigned CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715 and CVE-2017-5754 for these vulnerabilities.

Vulnerable Quantum Products

Impact

See FAQs on sites Meltdown and Spectre
From RedHat https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0007

• Variant CVE-2017-5753 triggers the speculative execution by performing a bounds-check bypass. It relies on the presence of a precisely-defined instruction sequence in the privileged code as well as the fact that memory accesses may cause allocation into the microprocessor's data cache even for speculatively executed instructions that never actually commit (retire). As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to cross the syscall boundary and read privileged memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks. (CVE-2017-5753, Important)
• Variant CVE-2017-5715 triggers the speculative execution by utilizing branch target injection. It relies on the presence of a precisely-defined instruction sequence in the privileged code as well as the fact that memory accesses may cause allocation into the microprocessor's data cache even for speculatively executed instructions that never actually commit (retire). As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to cross the syscall and guest/host boundaries and read privileged memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks. (CVE-2017-5715, Important)
• Variant CVE-2017-5754 relies on the fact that, on impacted microprocessors, during speculative execution of instruction permission faults, exception generation triggered by a faulting access is suppressed until the retirement of the whole instruction block. In a combination with the fact that memory accesses may populate the cache even when the block is being dropped and never committed (executed), an unprivileged local attacker could use this flaw to read privileged (kernel space) memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks. (CVE-2017-5754, Important)

References

Additional information about this vulnerability can be found here:

• https://meltdownattack.com
• https://spectreattack.com/
• https://security.googleblog.com/2018/01/todays-cpu-vulnerability-what-you-need.html
• https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2018/01/reading-privileged-memory-with-side.html
• https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2018/01/03/Meltdown-and-Spectre-Side-Channel-Vulnerabilities
• https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/ADV180002
• https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/speculativeexecution?sc_cid=701f2000000tsLNAAY&

Contact Information

In US, call 800-284-5101. In Europe, call toll free +800-7826-8888 or direct +49 6131 324 185. You will need your system serial number. For additional contact information, go to http://www.quantum.com/serviceandsupport/get-help/index.aspx#contact-support