CVE-2018-3646

Description

Modern operating systems implement virtualization of physical memory to efficiently use available system resources and provide inter-domain protection through access control and isolation. The L1TF issue was found in the way the x86 microprocessor designs have implemented speculative execution of instructions (a commonly used performance optimization) in combination with handling of page-faults caused by terminated virtual to physical address resolving process. As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to read privileged memory of the kernel or other processes and/or cross guest/host boundaries to read host memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks.

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.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score5.65.65.6
Attack VectorLocalLocalLocal
Attack ComplexityHighHighHigh
Privileges RequiredLowLowLow
User InteractionNoneNoneNone
ScopeChangedChangedChanged
ConfidentialityHighHighHigh
Integrity ImpactNoneNoneNone
Availability ImpactNoneNoneNone

Vector

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

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

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality

Technical Impact: Read Application Data

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Intel OSSIRT (Intel.com) for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

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