Detections
Analytics
F5 Networks BIG-IP : Spectre SWAPGS gadget vulnerability (K31085564)
medium Nessus Plugin ID 138395
Language:
Synopsis
The remote device is missing a vendor-supplied security patch.Description
The version of F5 Networks BIG-IP installed on the remote host is prior to 13.1.3.5 / 14.1.2.7 / 15.0.1.4 / 15.1.0.5 / 16.0.0. It is, therefore, affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the K31085564 advisory.An information disclosure vulnerability exists when certain central processing units (CPU) speculatively access memory, aka 'Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1071, CVE-2019-1073.(CVE-2019-1125also known as Spectre SWAPGS gadget vulnerability)A Spectre gadget was found in the Linux kernel's implementation of system interrupts. An attacker with unprivilegedlocal access could use this information to reveal private data through a Spectre-like side channel.ImpactF5 continues to investigate the impact of the Spectre SWAPGS gadget vulnerability on our products. F5 is focused onproviding patched releases as soon as we have fully tested and verified fixes.
F5 will update this article with the most current information as soon as it is confirmed.BIG-IPFirst and foremost, there is no exposure on BIG-IP products by way ofthe data plane. All exposure is limited to the control plane (also known as the management plane).Furthermore, on the control plane, the vulnerability is exploitable only by four authorized, authenticated account roles: Administrator, Resource Administrator, Manager, and iRules Manager. You must be authorized to access the system in one of these roles to even attempt to exploit the vulnerability.This vulnerability requires an attacker who can provideand runbinary code of their choosing on the BIG-IP platform.These conditions severely restrict the exposure risk of BIG-IP products.For single-tenancy products, such as astandalone BIG-IP appliance, the risk is limited to a local, authorized user using this vulnerability to read information from memory that they would not normally be able to access, exceeding their privileges. Effectively, the risk in a single-tenancy situation is that a user may be able to access kernel-space memory, instead of being limited to their own user-space.For multi-tenancy environments, such as cloud, VE, and Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP), the same local risk applies as with single-tenancy environments local kernel memory access. Additionally, the risk of attacks across guests exists, or attacks against the hypervisor/host. In cloud and VE environments, preventing these new attacks falls on the hypervisor/host platform, outside the scope of F5's ability to support or patch. Please contact your cloud provider or hypervisor vendor to ensure that their platforms or products are protected against this Spectre vulnerability.For vCMP environments, F5 believes that while the Spectre SWAPGS gadget vulnerability does offer a theoretical possibility of guest-to-guest or guest-to-host attacks, these would be very difficult to successfully conduct in the BIG-IP environment.F5 is working with our hardware component vendors to determine the scope of this vulnerability across our various generations of hardware platforms. All of the information we currently have from our vendors is represented in this Security Advisory.We are also testing the fixes produced by the Linux community. We are conducting anextensive test campaign to characterize the impact of the fixes on system performance and stabilityto ensure, as best we can, a good experience for our customers. We do not want to rush the process and release fixes without a full understanding of any potential issues. Given the limited exposure, as detailed above, the complexity of the fixes, and the potential issues that we and others have seen, we believe a detailed approach is warranted and that rushing a fix could result in an impact to system stability or unacceptable performance costs. We will update this article with details of our fixes as they become available.To determine if this vulnerability affects aplatform and the processor type each platform uses, refer to the following table.Note: In the following table, only one entry is shown for platform models that may have several variants. For example, BIG-IP 11000, BIG-IP 11050, BIG-IP 11050F, and BIG-IP 11050N are all vulnerable and included in the table as BIG-IP 110x0. Some platforms may have multiple vendor processors, such as the iSeries platforms, which have one or more Intel core processors and may have a vulnerable ARM processor in one or more subsystems. F5 does not believe that ARM processors in these subsystems are accessible to attackers, unless some other code-execution vulnerability is present, but the information is being provided out of an abundance of caution.ModelProcessor typeVulnerable to CVE-2019-1125Spectre SWAPGS gadget vulnerabilityVIPRION B21x0IntelYVIPRION B2250IntelYVIPRION B4100AMDYVIPRION B4200AMDYVIPRION B43x0IntelYVIPRION B44x0IntelYBIG-IP 800IntelYBIG-IP 1600IntelYBIG-IP 3600IntelYBIG-IP 3900IntelYBIG- IP2xx0IntelYBIG-IP4xx0IntelYBIG-IP5xx0IntelYBIG-IP7xx0IntelYBIG-IP10xx0IntelYBIG- IP12xx0IntelYBIG-IPi2x00Intel, ARMYBIG-IPi4x00Intel, ARMYBIG-IPi5x00Intel, ARMYBIG-IPi7x00Intel, ARMYBIG-IPi10x00Intel, ARMYBIG-IP6400AMDYBIG-IP6900AMDYBIG-IP89x0AMDYBIG-IP110x0AMDYNote:
Platform models that have reached End of Technical Support (EoTS) will not be evaluated. For more information, refer toK4309: F5 platform lifecycle support policy.BIG-IQ and Enterprise ManagerSystems with microprocessors that use speculative execution and indirect branch prediction may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to an attacker with local user access by way ofa side-channel analysis.To determine if this vulnerability affects each platform and the processor type each platform uses, refer to the following table.ModelProcessor typeVulnerable to CVE-2018-3693 Spectre-NG Variant 1.1BIG-IQ 7000IntelYEnterprise Manager 4000IntelYNote: Platform models that have reached End of Technical Support (EoTS) will not be evaluated. For more information, refer toK4309: F5 platform lifecycle support policy.TraffixSystems with microprocessors that use speculative execution and indirect branch prediction may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to an attacker with local user access by way of a side- channel analysis.
Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the F5 Networks BIG-IP security advisory.
Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.
Solution
Upgrade to one of the non-vulnerable versions listed in the F5 Solution K31085564.See Also
Plugin Details
Severity: Medium
ID: 138395
File Name: f5_bigip_SOL31085564.nasl
Version: 1.11
Type: local
Published: 7/14/2020
Updated: 2/6/2026
Configuration: Enable paranoid mode
Supported Sensors: Nessus
Risk Information
VPR
Risk Factor: High
Score: 7.1
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: Low
Base Score: 2.1
Temporal Score: 1.6
Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
CVSS Score Source: CVE-2019-1125
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: cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_link_controller, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_application_visibility_and_reporting, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_domain_name_system, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_policy_enforcement_manager, cpe:/h:f5:big-ip, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_application_security_manager, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_advanced_firewall_manager, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_local_traffic_manager, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_access_policy_manager, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_global_traffic_manager, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_application_acceleration_manager, cpe:/a:f5:big-ip_webaccelerator
Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/BIG-IP/hotfix, Host/BIG-IP/modules, Host/BIG-IP/version, Settings/ParanoidReport
Exploit Available: true
Exploit Ease: Exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 8/22/2019
Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/10/2018
Reference Information
CVE: CVE-2019-1125