CVE-2017-5715
Description
An industry-wide issue was found in the way many modern microprocessor designs have implemented speculative execution of instructions (a commonly used performance optimization). There are three primary variants of the issue which differ in the way the speculative execution can be exploited. Variant CVE-2017-5715 triggers the speculative execution by utilizing branch target injection. It relies on the presence of a precisely-defined instruction sequence in the privileged code as well as the fact that memory accesses may cause allocation 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 cross the syscall and guest/host boundaries and read privileged memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks.
Statement
Please see the Vulnerability Response article for the full list of updates available and a detailed discussion of 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 Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.6 | 5.6 | 5.6 |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | Local |
| Attack Complexity | High | High | High |
| Privileges Required | Low | Low | Low |
| User Interaction | None | None | None |
| Scope | Changed | Changed | Changed |
| Confidentiality | High | High | High |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | None |
| Availability Impact | None | None | None |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD: CVSS:3.1/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)
Integrity
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
A successful exploitation of this weakness will change the order of an application's execution and will likely be used to bypass specific protection mechanisms. This bypass can be exploited further to potentially read data that should otherwise be unaccessible.
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank Google Project Zero for reporting this issue.
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