US-CERT- TA18-004A: Meltdown and Spectre Side-Channel Vulnerability Guidance

Started by Netwörkheäd, February 11, 2018, 12:04:03 AM

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Netwörkheäd

February 11, 2018, 12:04:03 AM
TA18-004A: Meltdown and Spectre Side-Channel Vulnerability Guidance

Original release date: January 04, 2018 | Last revised: February 10, 2018

Systems Affected


CPU hardware implementations


Overview


On January 3, 2018, the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) became aware of a set of security vulnerabilities—known as Meltdown and Spectre—that affect modern computer processors. These vulnerabilities can be exploited to steal sensitive data present in a computer systems' memory.


Description


CPU hardware implementations are vulnerable to side-channel attacks, referred to as Meltdown and Spectre. Meltdown is a bug that "melts" the security boundaries normally enforced by the hardware, affecting desktops, laptops, and cloud computers. Spectre is a flaw an attacker can exploit to force a program to reveal its data. The name derives from "speculative execution"—an optimization method a computer system performs to check whether it will work to prevent a delay when actually executed. Spectre affects almost all devices including desktops, laptops, cloud servers, and smartphones.

More details of these attacks can be found here:


Impact


An attacker can gain access to the system by establishing command and control presence on a machine via malicious Javascript, malvertising, or phishing. Once successful, the attacker could escalate privileges to exploit Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, revealing sensitive information from a computer's kernel memory, including keystrokes, passwords, encryption keys, and other valuable information.


Solution


Mitigation

NCCIC encourages users and administrators to refer to their hardware and software vendors for the most recent information. In the case of Spectre, the vulnerability exists in CPU architecture rather than in software, and is not easily patched; however, this vulnerability is more difficult to exploit. 

After patching, performance impacts may vary, depending on use cases. NCCIC recommends administrators ensure that performance is monitored for critical applications and services, and work with their vendor(s) and service provider(s) to mitigate the effect, if possible.

Additionally, NCCIC recommends users and administrators who rely on cloud infrastructure work with their CSP to mitigate and resolve any impacts resulting from host OS patching and mandatory rebooting.

For machines running Windows Server, a number of registry changes must be completed in addition to installation of the patches.  NCCIC recommends verifying your Windows Server version before downloading applicable patches and performing registry edits.  A list of registry changes can be found here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4072698/windows-server-guidance-to-protect-against-the-speculative-execution

Antivirus

Typical antivirus programs are built on a signature management system, and may not be able to detect the vulnerabilities. NCCIC recommends checking with your antivirus vendor to confirm compatibility with Meltdown and Spectre patches. Microsoft recommends third-party antivirus vendors add a change to the registry key of the machine running the antivirus software. Without it, that machine will not receive any of the following fixes from Microsoft:

  • Windows Update
  • Windows Server Update Services
  • System Center Configuration Manager 

More information can be found here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4072699/january-3-2018-windows-security-updates-and-antivirus-software.

Vendor Links

The following table contains links to advisories and patches published in response to the vulnerabilities. This table will be updated as information becomes available.

Note: NCCIC strongly recommends:

  • downloading any patches or microcode directly from your vendor's website
  • using a test environment to verify each patch before implmenting
Link to Vendor InformationDate Added
AmazonJanuary 4, 2018
AMDJanuary 4, 2018
AndroidJanuary 4, 2018
AppleJanuary 4, 2018
ARMJanuary 4, 2018
CentOSJanuary 4, 2018
ChromiumJanuary 4, 2018
CiscoJanuary 10, 2018
CitrixJanuary 4, 2018
DebianJanuary 5, 2018
DragonflyBSDJanuary 8, 2018
F5January 4, 2018
Fedora ProjectJanuary 5, 2018
FortinetJanuary 5, 2018
HPJanuary 19, 2018
GoogleJanuary 4, 2018
HuaweiJanuary 4, 2018
IBMJanuary 5, 2018
IntelJanuary 4, 2018
JuniperJanuary 8, 2018
LenovoJanuary 4, 2018
LinuxJanuary 4, 2018
LLVM: variant #2January 8, 2018
LLVM: builtin_load_no_speculateJanuary 8, 2018
LLVM: llvm.nospeculatedloadJanuary 8, 2018
Microsoft AzureJanuary 4, 2018
MicrosoftJanuary 4, 2018
MozillaJanuary 4, 2018
NetAppJanuary 8, 2018
NutanixJanuary 10, 2018
NVIDIAJanuary 4, 2018
OpenSuSEJanuary 4, 2018
OracleJanuary 17, 2018
QubesJanuary 8, 2018
Red HatJanuary 4, 2018
SuSEJanuary 4, 2018
SynologyJanuary 8, 2018
Trend MicroJanuary 4, 2018
UbuntuJanuary 17, 2018
VMwareJanuary 10, 2018
XenJanuary 4, 2018

 


References




Revision History



  • January 4, 2018: Initial version

  • January 5, 2018: Updated vendor information links for Citrix, Mozilla, and IBM in the table and added links to Debian, Fedora Project, and Fortinet

  • January 8, 2018: Added links to DragonflyBSD, Juniper, LLVM, NetApp, Qubes, and Synology

  • January 9, 2018: Updated Solution Section

  • January 10, 2018: Added links to Cisco and Nutanix

  • January 17, 2018: Added note to Mitigation section and links to Oracle and Ubuntu

  • January 18, 2018: Updated Description, Impact, and Solution Sections, and added an additional link

  • January 19, 2018: Added link to HP

  • January 31, 2018: Provided additional links and updated Description and Mitigation sections



This product is provided subject to this Notification and this Privacy & Use policy.



Source: TA18-004A: Meltdown and Spectre Side-Channel Vulnerability Guidance
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