Debian DLA-1446-1 : intel-microcode security update (Spectre)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 111359

Synopsis

The remote Debian host is missing a security update.

Description

Security researchers identified two software analysis methods that, if used for malicious purposes, have the potential to improperly gather sensitive data from multiple types of computing devices with different vendors’ processors and operating systems.

This update requires an update to the intel-microcode package, which is non-free. Users who have already installed the version from jessie-backports-sloppy do not need to upgrade.

CVE-2018-3639 – Speculative Store Bypass (SSB) – also known as Variant 4

Systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution and speculative execution of memory reads before the addresses of all prior memory writes are known may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to an attacker with local user access via a side-channel analysis.

CVE-2018-3640 – Rogue System Register Read (RSRE) – also known as Variant 3a

Systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution and that perform speculative reads of system registers may allow unauthorized disclosure of system parameters to an attacker with local user access via a side-channel analysis.

For Debian 8 'Jessie', these problems have been fixed in version 3.20180703.2~deb8u1.

We recommend that you upgrade your intel-microcode packages.

NOTE: Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the DLA security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Solution

Upgrade the affected intel-microcode package.

See Also

https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/07/msg00038.html

https://packages.debian.org/source/jessie/intel-microcode

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 111359

File Name: debian_DLA-1446.nasl

Version: 1.5

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 7/27/2018

Updated: 1/11/2021

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.9

Temporal Score: 3.8

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:N/A:N

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.6

Temporal Score: 5.1

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:intel-microcode, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:8.0

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/Debian/release, Host/Debian/dpkg-l

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 7/27/2018

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2018-3639, CVE-2018-3640