New speculative-execution control mechanism for Virtual Machines

Updates of vCenter Server, ESXi, Workstation and Fusion virtualize the new speculative-execution control mechanism for Virtual Machines (VMs). As a result, a patched Guest Operating System (Guest OS) can remediate the Branch Target Injection issue (CVE-2017-5715). This issue may allow for information disclosure between processes within the VM.

To remediate CVE-2017-5715 in the Guest OS the following VMware and third-party requirements must be met :

VMware Requirements
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- Deploy the updated version of vCenter Server listed in the table   (if vCenter Server is used).

- Deploy the ESXi patches and/or the new versions for Workstation or   Fusion listed in the table.

- Ensure that your VMs are using Hardware Version 9 or higher. For   best performance, Hardware Version 11 or higher is recommended.
  VMware Knowledge Base article 1010675 discusses Hardware Versions.

Third-party Requirements
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- Deploy the Guest OS patches for CVE-2017-5715. These patches are   to be obtained from your OS vendor.

- Update the CPU microcode. Additional microcode is needed for your   CPU to be able to expose the new MSRs that are used by the patched   Guest OS. This microcode should be available from your hardware   platform vendor.
  VMware is providing several versions of the required microcode from   INTEL and AMD through ESXi patches listed in the table. See VMware   Knowledge Base 52085 for more details.

Detections

Analytics

VMSA-2018-0004 : VMware vSphere, Workstation and Fusion updates add Hypervisor-Assisted Guest Remediation for speculative execution issue (Spectre)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 105768

Version 3.11