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TA18-141A: Side-Channel Vulnerability Variants 3a and 4

[html]Original release date: May 21, 2018 | Last revised: May 22, 2018

         

Systems Affected

         

CPU hardware implementations

         
         

Overview

         

On May 21, 2018, new variants of the side-channel central processing unit (CPU) hardware vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown were publicly disclosed. These variants—known as 3A and 4—can allow an attacker to obtain access to sensitive information on affected systems.

         
         

Description

         

Common CPU hardware implementations are vulnerable to the side-channel attacks known as Spectre and Meltdown. Meltdown is a bug that "melts" the security boundaries normally enforced by the hardware, affecting desktops, laptops, and cloud computers. Spectre is a flaw that an attacker can exploit to force a CPU to reveal its data.

Variant 3a is a vulnerability that may allow an attacker with local access to speculatively read system parameters via side-channel analysis and obtain sensitive information.

Variant 4 is a vulnerability that exploits "speculative bypass." When exploited, Variant 4 could allow an attacker to read older memory values in a CPU's stack or other memory locations. While implementation is complex, this side-channel vulnerability could allow less privileged code to

• Read arbitrary privileged data; and
• Run older commands speculatively, resulting in cache allocations that could be used to exfiltrate data by standard side-channel methods.

Corresponding CVEs for Side-Channel Variants 1, 2, 3, 3a, and 4 are found below:

• Variant 1: Bounds Check Bypass – CVE-2017-5753
• Variant 2: Branch Target Injection – CVE-2017-5715
• Variant 3: Rogue Data Cache Load – CVE-2017-5754
• Variant 3a: Rogue System Register Read – CVE-2018-3640