Difference between revisions of "Speculative Execution Vulnerabilities of 2018"

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At this time we know that [[POWER9|POWER9]], [[POWER8|POWER8]], [[POWER8E|POWER8E]], POWER7+, POWER6, and certain PowerPC architectures are affected by at least some of these vulnerabilities. <ref>IBM PSIRT Blog post, [https://www.ibm.com/blogs/psirt/potential-impact-processors-power-family/ Potential Impact on Processors in the POWER family]</ref><ref>TenFourFox Development blog post, [https://tenfourfox.blogspot.co.at/2018/01/actual-field-testing-of-spectre-on.html Actual field testing of Spectre on various Power Macs]</ref><ref>Raptor Engineering GNU Social [https://social.raptorengineering.io/conversation/731 notices about POWER8 and POWER9 vulnerability]</ref><ref>Red Hat security page for [https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/speculativeexecution Kernel Side-Channel Attacks]</ref>
 
At this time we know that [[POWER9|POWER9]], [[POWER8|POWER8]], [[POWER8E|POWER8E]], POWER7+, POWER6, and certain PowerPC architectures are affected by at least some of these vulnerabilities. <ref>IBM PSIRT Blog post, [https://www.ibm.com/blogs/psirt/potential-impact-processors-power-family/ Potential Impact on Processors in the POWER family]</ref><ref>TenFourFox Development blog post, [https://tenfourfox.blogspot.co.at/2018/01/actual-field-testing-of-spectre-on.html Actual field testing of Spectre on various Power Macs]</ref><ref>Raptor Engineering GNU Social [https://social.raptorengineering.io/conversation/731 notices about POWER8 and POWER9 vulnerability]</ref><ref>Red Hat security page for [https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/speculativeexecution Kernel Side-Channel Attacks]</ref>
  
== CVE-2017-5754 (Meltdown) ==
+
== CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre variant 2) ==
 
 
=== Common Mitigations ===
 
 
 
POWER7, POWER8, and POWER9 are patched from CVE-2017-5754 by purging the L1 cache when context switching to a less privileged process, as the vulnerability on these architectures affects L1 but not L2 cache.<ref>Larabel, Michael. [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=PowerPC-Mem-Protection-Keys PowerPC Memory Protection Keys In For Linux 4.16, Power Has Meltdown Mitigation In 4.15]. 2018-01-22</ref>  Firmware updates are also required to enable workarounds at the hardware level.<ref>[https://delivery04.dhe.ibm.com/sar/CMA/SFA/07dcs/1/8001-12C-22C--8005-12N-22N-OpenPowerReadme.v4.0.xhtml IBM Power8 Systems Server Firmware]</ref> <ref>[http://delivery04.dhe.ibm.com/sar/CMA/SFA/07dhe/0/AC922_8335-GTG_OpenPowerReadme.v1.3.xhtml IBM POWER9 Systems Server Firmware]</ref>.
 
  
 
=== POWER9 ===
 
=== POWER9 ===
  
Hardware fixes are also in place for [[POWER9]] Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above <ref name="hostboot-commit-fcf7d0e3">[https://git.raptorcs.com/git/talos-hostboot/commit/?id=fcf7d0e3f5fe8013b8f88a70a4f69cb5c0efc38b Hostboot commit message listing security changes for NDD2.2 / CDD1.1]</ref>.  In conjunction with the above kernel patch, Meltdown is fully mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.
+
Hardware fixes are in place for [[POWER9]] Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above <ref name="hostboot-commit-fcf7d0e3" />.  With these hardware changes, Spectre variant 2 is believed to be mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.
  
 
== CVE-2017-5753 (Spectre variant 1) ==
 
== CVE-2017-5753 (Spectre variant 1) ==
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Hardware fixes are in place for [[POWER9]] Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above <ref name="hostboot-commit-fcf7d0e3" />.  With these hardware changes, cross-process attacks via Spectre variant 1 are believed to be fully mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.
 
Hardware fixes are in place for [[POWER9]] Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above <ref name="hostboot-commit-fcf7d0e3" />.  With these hardware changes, cross-process attacks via Spectre variant 1 are believed to be fully mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.
  
== CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre variant 2) ==
+
== CVE-2017-5754 (Meltdown) ==
 +
 
 +
=== Common Mitigations ===
 +
 
 +
POWER7, POWER8, and POWER9 are patched from CVE-2017-5754 by purging the L1 cache when context switching to a less privileged process, as the vulnerability on these architectures affects L1 but not L2 cache.<ref>Larabel, Michael. [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=PowerPC-Mem-Protection-Keys PowerPC Memory Protection Keys In For Linux 4.16, Power Has Meltdown Mitigation In 4.15]. 2018-01-22</ref>  Firmware updates are also required to enable workarounds at the hardware level.<ref>[https://delivery04.dhe.ibm.com/sar/CMA/SFA/07dcs/1/8001-12C-22C--8005-12N-22N-OpenPowerReadme.v4.0.xhtml IBM Power8 Systems Server Firmware]</ref> <ref>[http://delivery04.dhe.ibm.com/sar/CMA/SFA/07dhe/0/AC922_8335-GTG_OpenPowerReadme.v1.3.xhtml IBM POWER9 Systems Server Firmware]</ref>.
  
 
=== POWER9 ===
 
=== POWER9 ===
  
Hardware fixes are in place for [[POWER9]] Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above <ref name="hostboot-commit-fcf7d0e3" />.  With these hardware changes, Spectre variant 2 is believed to be mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.
+
Hardware fixes are also in place for [[POWER9]] Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above <ref name="hostboot-commit-fcf7d0e3">[https://git.raptorcs.com/git/talos-hostboot/commit/?id=fcf7d0e3f5fe8013b8f88a70a4f69cb5c0efc38b Hostboot commit message listing security changes for NDD2.2 / CDD1.1]</ref>.  In conjunction with the above kernel patch, Meltdown is fully mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.
  
 
== Official statement from Raptor Computing Systems regarding Talos™ II ==
 
== Official statement from Raptor Computing Systems regarding Talos™ II ==

Revision as of 12:27, 24 February 2018

In January of 2018, news of three speculative execution vulnerabilities was made public. Information about these vulnerabilities had been disclosed in private to certain companies and projects in June of 2016.

CVE Group Google Project Zero name[1]
CVE-2017-5715 Spectre Variant 2: branch target injection
CVE-2017-5753 Spectre Variant 1: bounds check bypass
CVE-2017-5754 Meltdown Variant 3: rogue data cache load

At this time we know that POWER9, POWER8, POWER8E, POWER7+, POWER6, and certain PowerPC architectures are affected by at least some of these vulnerabilities. [2][3][4][5]

CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre variant 2)

POWER9

Hardware fixes are in place for POWER9 Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above [6]. With these hardware changes, Spectre variant 2 is believed to be mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.

CVE-2017-5753 (Spectre variant 1)

POWER9

Hardware fixes are in place for POWER9 Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above [6]. With these hardware changes, cross-process attacks via Spectre variant 1 are believed to be fully mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.

CVE-2017-5754 (Meltdown)

Common Mitigations

POWER7, POWER8, and POWER9 are patched from CVE-2017-5754 by purging the L1 cache when context switching to a less privileged process, as the vulnerability on these architectures affects L1 but not L2 cache.[7] Firmware updates are also required to enable workarounds at the hardware level.[8] [9].

POWER9

Hardware fixes are also in place for POWER9 Nimbus DD2.2 / Cumulus DD1.1 and above [6]. In conjunction with the above kernel patch, Meltdown is fully mitigated on the production POWER9 devices.

Official statement from Raptor Computing Systems regarding Talos™ II

POWER9 will not ship with vulnerability to Meltdown or any loss in performance compared with the current prototype chips (DD2.1). Further, Spectre is fully mitigated with the exception of the same-process issue that is affecting the entire CPU industry. As far as we are aware there will be no further mitigation from any major CPU vendor now or in the future, as the remaining Spectre issue has been deemed an application level programming issue versus a CPU design issue. Patches for GCC to help fix the affected applications are already rolling out.

External Links

References