Security Vulnerability: Spectre Variant 3a (Rogue Register Load) aka CVE-2018-3640.

This document (7022950) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

Situation

On Intel x86, speculative reading of MSR registers could leak their values even if the local users was not privileged to read out these registers.

This could result in gaining knowledge e.g. about address mappings for use in further exploitation.

Resolution

Intel will fix this issue solely with CPU Microcode updates, no updates for the Linux Kernel or Hypervisors will be required.

New CPU Microcode can either be received from your BIOS / Hardware vendor or from Intel CPU Microcode download page.

SUSE will also provide these with ucode-intel or microcode_ctl packages once Intel makes them publicly available.

Cause

CVE-2018-3640

Additional Information

TID 7022512 : Security Vulnerability: "Meltdown" and "Spectre" side channel attacks against CPUs with speculative execution.
TID 7022514 : Security Vulnerability: "Meltdown" and "Spectre" - Hypervisor Information.

Disclaimer

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