CVE-2018-3693

Related Vulnerabilities: CVE-2018-3693  

An industry-wide issue was found in the way many modern microprocessor designs have implemented speculative execution of instructions past bounds check. The flaw relies on the presence of a precisely-defined instruction sequence in the privileged code and the fact that memory writes occur to an address which depends on the untrusted value. Such writes cause an update into the microprocessor's data cache even for speculatively executed instructions that never actually commit (retire). As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to influence speculative execution and/or read privileged memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks.

An industry-wide issue was found in the way many modern microprocessor designs have implemented speculative execution of instructions past bounds check. The flaw relies on the presence of a precisely-defined instruction sequence in the privileged code and the fact that memory writes occur to an address which depends on the untrusted value. Such writes cause an update into the microprocessor's data cache even for speculatively executed instructions that never actually commit (retire). As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to influence speculative execution and/or read privileged memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks.

Find out more about CVE-2018-3693 from the MITRE CVE dictionary dictionary and NIST NVD.

Statement

This issue affects the versions of the Linux kernel as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, 7 and Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2. Future kernel updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, 7 and Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 may address this issue.

CVSS v3 metrics

CVSS3 Base Score 5.9
CVSS3 Base Metrics CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
Attack Vector Local
Attack Complexity High
Privileges Required None
User Interaction None
Scope Changed
Confidentiality High
Integrity Impact None
Availability Impact None

Red Hat Security Errata

Platform Errata Release Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (kernel) RHSA-2018:2384 2018-08-14
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (kernel) RHSA-2018:2390 2018-08-14
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Real Time for NFV (v. 7) (kernel-rt) RHSA-2018:2395 2018-08-14

Affected Packages State

Platform Package State
Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 kernel-rt Affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 kernel-alt Affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel Affected

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Vladimir Kiriansky (MIT) and Carl Waldspurger (Carl Waldspurger Consulting) for reporting this issue.

External References