meltdown

  1. AlphaAtlas

    New Speculative Execution Bug Allegedly Affects Intel CPUs

    Back in 2018, when the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities were first publicized, many security experts feared that they opened a figurative Pandora's box. Those two exploits are part of a wider class of potential speculative execution flaws, and this week, those fears were realized, as...
  2. AlphaAtlas

    Spectre and Meltdown Patches Responsible for Some Nvidia Driver Slowdown Claims

    Some users have accused Nvidia of slowing down old graphics cards with recent driver updates. Tech YES City's viewers asked about that issue, and in a separate video, the YouTuber put it to the test. While he didn't find any evidence to corroborate those claims, he did find a discrepancy between...
  3. AlphaAtlas

    MIT's DAWG Mitigates Spectre and Meltdown

    Researchers at MIT have built a new security measure on top of Intel's Cache Allocation Technology. Dynamically Allocated Way Guard, or DAWG, is built to isolate programs from each other without the performance overhead of Intel's CAT. The technology only requires "minor modifications to the...
  4. cageymaru

    The Performance Cost of Security Mitigation on Linux 4.19

    Michael Larabel from Phoronix has run three Intel Xeon and two AMD EPYC systems through a battery of testing including a virtual machine to determine the performance cost that security mitigation patches such as Spectre, Meltdown, and Foreshadow have had on the platforms under Linux. The Linux...
  5. DooKey

    Spectre and Meltdown in Hardware: Intel Clarifies Whiskey Lake and Amber Lake

    Intel has said they are working on hardware fixes for Spectre and Meltdown, but they haven't been very specific about things lately. Anandtech decided to give them a ring and Intel told them a few more things about their upcoming processors. Amber Lake will not have any hardware fixes since it...
  6. cageymaru

    Microsoft Patch Tuesday Addresses Intel L1 Terminal Fault Vulnerability

    Microsoft Patch Tuesday has implemented fixes and improvements to address the newly disclosed Intel L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF). AMD's Bulldozer and Jaguar processors reclaim lost performance as an issue that caused high CPU usage and degradation with Family 15h and 16h AMD processors was...
  7. cageymaru

    Intel Has Disclosed New Security Flaws that Affect SGX and Virtualization

    Intel has disclosed a new set of security flaws collectively called the L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF). These flaws were discovered in conjunction with researchers at KU Leuven University and other universities. The researchers call their discoveries Foreshadow and Foreshadow - Next Generation (NG)...
  8. cageymaru

    Mitigating Spectre with Site Isolation in Chrome

    The Google Security Blog has showcased a newly enabled Chrome feature that helps to protect against speculative execution side-channel attacks like Spectre. Site Isolation limits each renderer process to documents from a single site. To put this in context, previously Chrome allowed cross-site...
  9. O

    How do you test for Spectre/Meltdown vulnerability? In what CPU will it be fixed at hardware level?

    Two questions: How do you test or check for Spectre / Meltdown vulnerability? Do we know, yet, in what CPU these will be fixed at hardware level? So will 9th generation Intel CPU's be "immune" for example? I ask the second question because it seems like new "variants" of the above...
  10. S

    MSI X99S XPOWER AC Spectre/Meltdown BIOS?

    Hey guys, Back in January MSI put out a press release that they were coming out with a new BIOS for a ton of mobos - including my X99S XPOWER AC - http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/msi-releases-bios-updates-to-address-recent-vulberabilities.html - however, the firmware mentioned (E7881IMS.1C0)...
  11. R

    CPU Utilization is Wrong

    In May of last year, senior performance architect at Netflix, Brendan Gregg posted an interesting article about how the "%CPU" metric is wrong, and is progressively getting worse. Now, Brendan expands on his findings in a 5 minute video from the Southern California Linux Expo. The UpSCALE...
  12. FrgMstr

    Intel Is Unable Deliver a Microcode Patch Some Older CPU Models

    Intel has released a document that explains which CPUs will not receive a Spectre / Meltdown patch. Chipzilla believes that these CPUs are typically implemented in closed systems and are expected to have a lower likelihood of exposure to vulnerabilities. Also it was deemed not practical to...
  13. FrgMstr

    Meltdown Malware Patch That Opens Other Holes Fixed on Win7

    Microsoft just issued a March 2018 patch for the January 2018 patch that was directed at fixing a Meltdown malware attack vector according to Bleeping Computer. The January patch specific to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. That patch allowed access permission for kernel memory. Make...
  14. DooKey

    AMD Jabs Intel Good Over Spectre/Meltdown Problems

    AMD has a nice little sign set up in their booth over at Cloudfest in Germany. In a nut shell they take a nice little shot at Intel over their Spectre/Meltdown woes. You have to see it to believe it and I'm sure you'll love it as much as I did. Check out the twitter post that brought this to...
  15. R

    Microsoft Admits It Incorrectly Upgraded Some Windows 10 Users To V1709

    Microsoft has admitted that it incorrectly updated some Windows 10 machines to version 1709 despite users having paused update operations in their OS settings according to a report from BleepingComputer. Only users that were on V1703 were affected, in that version Microsoft added special...
  16. R

    Intel Issues Spectre and Meltdown Microcode Updates for Sandy and Ivy

    According to Intel's Microcode Revision Guidance paper, they have released new microcode updates for Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge to deal with the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. Next up are Westmere Xeons, Nehalem Xeons, as well as some Arrandale and Clarkdale CPUs, with Arrandale...
  17. DooKey

    Intel Didn't Tell Government About Meltdown/Spectre Because They Couldn't Help With Fix

    Back in January after the Meltdown/Spectre threat became public knowledge members of Congress sent letters to Intel and others to ask them why they didn't tell the government about the problems. According to letters sent back to Congress it came down to the fact that Intel didn't feel it was...
  18. R

    Intel Releases Updated Microcode For Meltdown and Spectre

    Intel has announced that it has released production microcode updates to OEM manufacturers for Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, and Skylake platforms. Along with this announcement, Intel has finally given us a schedule and availability table for the microcode revisions that can be found here. Nice to...
  19. DooKey

    Two New Meltdown/Spectre Variants Found

    It appears that the meltdown/spectre rabbit hole is deeper and more twisted than we realized. Researchers from Princeton and Nvidia have found two new variants they call MeltdownPrime and SpectrePrime. The good news about these is current software mitigation should prevent any attack using the...
  20. DooKey

    Intel Continuing to Work on Spectre/Meltdown Patches

    Navin Shenoy, of Intel, says they have found the problem with the reboot issue on Broadwell and Haswell firmware updates and they have released more microcode for their Skylake platforms to the OEMs. The plan is to continue to test the updates and release them as soon as possible to the field...
  21. FrgMstr

    Expect the Spectre....and Meltdown Soon

    Bleeping Computer is reporting that we may very soon see malware very soon that leverages both the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities soon. We all know this is coming, but just when has been the real question. As Intel is scrambling to get fixes out that do not cause more problems than those...
  22. R

    Congress Has Questions About Meltdown and Spectre

    Congress has some questions about Meltdown and Spectre, and they are calling out those involved. Members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce have drafted letters to the heads of several companies involved in the security flaw. The companies whose CEO's received letters are; Apple, Amazon...
  23. R

    Intel Plans To Have Spectre & Meltdown-Proof CPUs This Year

    Slashgear is reporting that intel plans to have versions of its processors that address the Spectre and Meltdown security flaws on the market later this year. News on the processor update came during the earnings call with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, after the company announced...
  24. R

    Linus Torvalds Rips Into Intel

    In a public email chain, the Linux inventor Linus Torvalds, and David Woodhouse, engineer at Amazon in the UK discuss Intel's "fix" for Meltdown/spectre. Never one to pull punches Torvalds exclaims "the patches are COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE." I can't even pretend to understand the technical...
  25. FrgMstr

    Intel Patches Causing Big Reboot Issues Confirmed

    As we reported back on January 12th, there were widespread reports of Intel's Meltdown and Spectre patches causing spontaneous reboots on systems. (I think we have dealt with the issue here once in the past week.) Now Intel is suggesting that you NOT roll out those patches as those seem to be...
  26. R

    Microsoft Resumes Meltdown & Spectre Updates for AMD Devices

    A report from BleepingComputer states that Microsoft is resuming the rollout of security updates for AMD devices to patch the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. Microsoft had halted the rollout for AMD-based machines on January 9th, after their patch left users with PCs that were crashing...
  27. Pieter3dnow

    Windows 10 unbootable fix meltdown spectre

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-meltdown-spectre-patch-new-updates-bring-fix-for-unbootable-amd-pcs/
  28. FrgMstr

    Intel Random Restart Bug & Data Center Performance After Patches

    Back on January 11, Intel started seeing reports of random system reboots after applying Meltdown and Spectre patches on Intel Broadwell and Haswell CPUs. Seems as if this was not an isolated occurrence and this has now been verified with other Intel partners. And this looks to be hammering a...
  29. S

    Overclocking apps broken after Meltdown/Spectre Windows Patch

    Hi folks, I've come to find that my system has become unstable after enjoying nearly a year of light overclocking after installing the Windows update for the Meltdown patch. Firstly my OC (may not reflect outdated specs in sig sorry): 7700k, 4.8Ghz, 1.24v (4.5 Ring + 4.5 AVX @ 1.21v) MSI...
  30. R

    New Tool Detects If Your PC Is Vulnerable To Meltdown And Spectre

    Gibson Research has released a new tool called InSpectre to detect if your PC is vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre. The tiny 122 KB program runs in place and checks identifiers as well as Microsoft updates to be sure you are protected from these flaws. Very cool little piece of software...
  31. DooKey

    Meltdown/Spectre Firmware Updates Causing Reboots for Some Intel Customers

    Intel is currently looking into reports that some of its customers are experiencing reboots in systems that update to the latest firmware for Meltdown/Spectre mitigation. The systems affected are running Broadwell and Haswell processors. However, Intel still recommends end-users should apply...
  32. FrgMstr

    AMD Doubles Down on Previous Spectre and Meltdown Statments

    Undoubtedly there has been some loose talk about Meltdown and Spectre and its impacts on AMD CPUs. AMD just sent this over as it wants to be perfectly clear on its position on these threats. We have seen some initial stories with a couple of inaccuracies so want to make sure we are being...
  33. FrgMstr

    Intel Publishes In-House Security Fix Benchmarks for Desktop

    If you are not now aware of the Meltdown and Spectre attacks, you are probably not reading this. Intel has now come out with client-side benchmarks (PDF pictured below) that show the impact of its security fixes using SYSmark, PCMark, and 3DMark on Coffee Lake, Kaby Lake and Skylake...
  34. S

    Confused about Spectre/Meltdown and BIOS/Firmware/Microcode updates

    At work, machines are either HP or Dell. Easy to go to their website and download the latest BIOS to update the microcode. Install the OS patch, then use the speculation powershell cmdlet to verify protection - all green. Now what about ancient CPUs like Q6600? What about custom build...
  35. DooKey

    IBM Struggling to Deliver Meltdown/Spectre Patches

    According to internal papers that The Register has seen IBM is having big trouble delivering Meltdown/Spectre patches to their customers. Evidently they haven't been able to set up processes to respond to issues after patching and are writing an Excel spreadsheet to track actions taken. I feel...
  36. FrgMstr

    Windows Systems Performance Impacts from Spectre and Meltdown

    There has been a lot of discussion about Spectre and Meltdown since last week and now Microsoft has something to say about Windows Systems performance after patching. In general, our experience is that Variant 1 and Variant 3 mitigations have minimal performance impact, while Variant 2...
  37. DooKey

    Microsoft Meltdown/Spectre Patch May Bork Athlon Systems

    Over at answers.microsoft.com there's a long thread where Athlon CPU users are experiencing issues with the Meltdown/Spectre patch. KB4056892 appears to prevent a boot of the system after the patch is installed. In some instances a complete reinstall fixes the issue, but the update will once...
  38. DooKey

    Intel Hit With Multiple Class-Action Lawsuits After Meltdown Debacle

    Sometimes lawyers just amaze me with how fast they can put a lawsuit together. As a matter of fact three different sets (so far) of lawyers have already filed suit against Intel since the news came out this week that their processors had significant vulnerabilities and the fix will slow them...
  39. DooKey

    Intel Releasing Updates That Immunize Systems Against Meltdown and Spectre

    Intel has released a PR statement saying they have released updates for Meltdown and Spectre that make systems immune from both exploits. Supposedly they are doing this with firmware and software patches. Also, they will have updates issued for 90% of the processors introduced over the last 5...
  40. DooKey

    Apple Releases Mitigations to Meltdown for iOS, macOS, and tvOS

    Apple has confirmed that all Mac systems and iOS devices are affected by Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. At this time they have released mitigations to iOS 11.2, mac OS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2 to mitigate the risk of Meltdown on those OS. They plan to release mitgations in the coming days...
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