Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion

[trinidad]

I will try this out sometime this week Jerry. Thanks.

TC

[Moltke]

Here's another nice article I just found on the web, it describes another way to check on meltdown-spectre http://kroah.com/log/blog/2018/01/19/meltdown-status-2/

[trinidad]

Bad news is that now more than 200 different forms of malware have turned up in the "wild" modified to attempt to exploit the Spectre vulnerability, which indicates the probability that some sophisticated sleeper applications may evolve to pose a huge threat to Microsoft Windows.

Good news is that this week I will be posting several different alternative ways to monitor for the vulnerabilities besides the already available spectre-meltdown-checker. Debian has now backported the spectre-meltdown-checker for stretch.

TC

[TheDead]

"Once its weaponized to run evil things, we're doomed, DOOMED! Dooooooomed! - Tim the Enchanter!

We'll need Coconut computers!

[ian_r_h]

Hmmm... off to live in a cave in the middle of a forest (next to a river with plenty of fish)... 

Will launch my secret nuclear weapons at Intel first...

[supergamer]

It seems the new kernel 4.13.33 fixes the variant 2 version on an older amd at least.

[Moltke]

It seems the new kernel 4.13.33 fixes the variant 2 version on an older amd at least.

I'm using latest kernel 4.15 on an AMD CPU too and I see this message on boot I can't just now remember. However, running

Code:

$ grep . /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*

shows this:

Code:

/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown:Not affected
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1:Vulnerable
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2:Mitigation: Full generic retpoline

I believe message on boot has something to do with last line of that output; full generic reptoline.

[supergamer]

I used the script to check. Here is the report from your command:

Code:

/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown:Not affected
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1:Mitigation: OSB (observable speculation barrier, Intel v6)
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2:Mitigation: Full AMD retpoline

[The Repairman]

8)

[supergamer]

I'm running a highly modified version of Linux Lite and some modified Xubuntu stuff. I am assuming the kernel updates will be pushed out by Ubuntu as that is how I got them as I am running a HWE kernel.

Code:

System:    Host: supergamer Kernel: 4.13.0-33-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 (Gtk 2.24.28) Distro: Ubuntu 16.04 xenial
Machine:   System: TOSHIBA (portable) product: Satellite L505D v: PSLV6U-00K001
           Mobo: TOSHIBA model: Portable PC
           Bios: Insyde v: 1.00 date: 09/07/2009
CPU:       Dual core AMD Athlon II M300 (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 7979
           clock speeds: max: 2000 MHz 1: 1400 MHz 2: 800 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4100]
           bus-ID: 01:05.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: [email protected]
           GLX Renderer: AMD RS880 (DRM 2.50.0 / 4.13.0-33-generic, LLVM 5.0.0)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.2.8 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.13.0-33-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8187SE Wireless LAN Controller
           driver: rtl818x_pci port: 7000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 6000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: p5p1 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 250.1GB (36.2% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: TOSHIBA_MK2555GS size: 250.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 227G used: 82G (38%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.95GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 67.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 165 Uptime: 13 min Memory: 875.9/2746.7MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35