Two major security flaws have been announced this week which are said to affect all Intel and some AMD and ARM processors. This has led to a surge of patches and updates being released by vendors that we feel is important to share with you.
What do we know?
The exploits are called Meltdown and Spectre which take advantage of critical vulnerabilities in many modern computer processing units, or microchips made by Intel and potentially ARM and AMD. Both attacks circumvent security built into major operating systems hence the need for fixes and patches.
It is important to note that no known exploits can take advantage of these vulnerabilities at present, however we would encourage that you follow good security practice to mitigate these risks and apply the fixes and patches relevant to your environment.
From a Nouveau perspective we are monitoring the situation and we will apply patches (if required) and updates to customers who have a support agreement with us. You should expect further communication from us on our course of action. If you do not have an existing support agreement with us, but would like help in terms of what steps you should be taking to ensure the security of your systems, then please get in contact.
For more guidance around these exploits, please visit the National Cyber Security Centre for some practical advice and more information.
Nouveau Vendor Updates:-
Intel and Linux have developed tools to detect and mitigate the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities in Windows and Linux. See INTEL-SA-00075 Detection and Mitigation Tool (Windows) and INTEL-SA-00075 Linux Detection and Mitigation Tools (Linux) for further information.
Fortinet: strongly recommends upgrading to their latest publicly available software versions. For more information go to https://fortiguard.com/psirt/FG-IR-18-002.
Microsoft: have released updates, but we would encourage you to check your antivirus software before applying any fixes.
