Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities Intel (and AMD) Chip Bug

Anonymous
2018-01-04T01:54:57+00:00

A lot of noise on the internet, after Intel confirm that chips have a bug:

https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-responds-to-security-research-findings/ 

This post is to bring some light on this.

1- Intel says is not only their chips affected

2- PCID (Process-Context Identifiers), a chip feature,  has a bug that allow apps (malware) to read data

3- Process-context identifiers (PCIDs) are a facility by which a logical processor may cache information for multiple linear-address spaces. The processor may retain cached information when software switches to a different linear address space with a different PCID.

4- Macintosh and Linux OS are also affected.

Rumors:

1- If you have Haswell (4th-gen) or newer, PCID (Process-Context Identifiers) is enabled. 

2- After apply the patch, performance is going to be slower on newer CPU. Around 5 to 10%.

2- Still if you have older CPU, performance will be affected worse than newer CPUs.

3- To be affected you must have a OS 64 bits. {Correction: 32bits has vulnerability, MS still working on this)

Just as I'm writing this, Linus Torvalds and his team are working on this too:

https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/1/2/703

https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20180102222354.qikjmf7dvnjgbkxe%40alap3.anarazel.de

Can we get a word from Microsoft?

For windows, What patch is going to address this? (Update: Patch links and KB are listed on postings)

Is that is going to be on the Montly Rollup and/or Security only patches? (Update: See the links posted)

If performance is going to suffer, can we be able to uninstall such patch? (Update: Microsoft published a document about it, See the links posted)

Please, any info will be appreciated.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Security and privacy

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-01-04T16:50:12+00:00

    At least for Symantec AV, they recommend to update to ERASER Engine 117.3.0.358 (or greater), after that, KB patch applies without problem:

    If you don't. you will see  "Product Error requires attention" and the SEP system tray icon to report "There are multiple problems (2)".

    https://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/latest-win10-update-corrupts-sep14

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-01-04T15:56:56+00:00

    More info on this.

    The KB that address this is KB4056892.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4056892/windows-10-update-kb4056892

    Now, the BAD news: Some Antivirus have issues with this KB. 

    Due to the nature of the bug, some anti-virus applications do unsupported calls into kernel memory, that lead to a nasty BSOD (Blue Screen of Dead).

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4072699/important-information-regarding-the-windows-security-updates-released

    Microsoft went safe and only install patches with certified Antivirus.

    Antivirus need to update their engines.

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