![]() So don’t feel bad if it takes a few passes to really dig into the technical details - this is very complex and detailed stuff. For those who want in-depth technical details, the original research papers and associated publications are available at and, but it’s worth also keeping in mind that many of those involved in identifying these exploits have extensive backgrounds in academic computer architecture research. Additionally, we would like to help others to understand these complex issues, ideally using language and terms that don’t require the reader to be in the chip design business. While we have a solid understanding of these vulnerabilities and the current analysis of the contributing factors as well as patches to mitigate their potential impact, we will continue to collaborate with our partners, customers and researchers on this situation. In the course of our efforts, we reproduced Meltdown (variant 3) in our labs, and examined other variants, while working alongside many of our trusted hardware partners on mitigations. I was fortunate enough to be co-leading our efforts at mitigation of Meltdown and Spectre, alternatively known as variants 1, 2, and 3 of a family of similar attacks disclosed by Google Project Zero in a blog post on January 3rd. Technology leaders, including Red Hat, are working together to address these exploits and minimize the risk of potential attacks.Īt Red Hat, we’ve been working on mitigations for potential attacks under standard industry security embargos, deploying small, targeted teams operating on a “need to know” basis in order to prepare ahead of public disclosure. People are (rightly) concerned, and it’s of course very important to apply all of the necessary software updates that have been carefully produced and made available. These attacks, known as “Meltdown” and “Spectre”, are getting a lot of attention. Branch Target Injection is a technique for training branch predictors to speculatively execute certain instructions in order to infer data in the processor cache using a timing side-channel.Recent press reports talk about a newly discovered form of security threat that involves attackers exploiting common features of modern microprocessors (aka chips) that power our computers, tablets, smartphones, and other gadgets. IBRS offers a defense against Spectre v2, which Intel calls Branch Target Injection. Shortly after The Register first reported on the scramble to fix the Meltdown and Spectre bugs, Intel published details about Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation ( IBRS), a mechanism to restrict speculation of indirect branches, which tell processors to start executing instructions at a new location. Boffins release tool to decrypt Intel microcode.Apple gets lawsuit over Meltdown and Spectre dismissed.Older AMD, Intel chips vulnerable to data-leaking 'Retbleed' Spectre variant. ![]()
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