CVE-2018-3665

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ModerateModerate ImpactWhat does this mean?
DescriptionStatementMitigationAdditional informationAffected PackagesCVSS Score DetailsWeakness (CWE)AcknowledgementsFAQ

Description

A Floating Point Unit (FPU) state information leakage flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel saved and restored the FPU state during task switch. Linux kernels that follow the "Lazy FPU Restore" scheme are vulnerable to the FPU state information leakage issue. An unprivileged local attacker could use this flaw to read FPU state bits by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks, similar to the Meltdown vulnerability disclosed earlier this year.

A Floating Point Unit (FPU) state information leakage flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel saved and restored the FPU state during task switch. Linux kernels that follow the "Lazy FPU Restore" scheme are vulnerable to the FPU state information leakage issue. An unprivileged local attacker could use this flaw to read FPU state bits by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks, similar to the Meltdown vulnerability disclosed earlier this year.

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 6, 7, and Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 may address this issue. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is now in Production 3 Phase of the support and maintenance life cycle. This has been rated as having Moderate security impact and is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/.

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 6, 7, and Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 may address this issue.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is now in Production 3 Phase of the support and maintenance life cycle. This has been rated as having Moderate security impact and is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/.

Mitigation

RHEL-7 will automatically default to (safe) “eager” floating point register restore on Sandy Bridge and newer Intel processors. AMD processors are not affected. You can mitigate this issue on older processors by booting the kernel with the 'eagerfpu=on' parameter to enable eager FPU restore mode. In this mode FPU state is saved and restored for every task/context switch regardless of whether the current process invokes FPU instructions or not. The parameter does not affect performance negatively, and can be applied with no adverse effects to processors that are not affected.

Additional information

  • Bugzilla 1585011: Kernel: FPU state information leakage via lazy FPU restore
  • CWE-200: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
  • FAQ: Frequently asked questions about CVE-2018-3665

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

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 HatNVD

CVSS v3 Base Score

5.6

5.6

Attack Vector

Local

Local

Attack Complexity

High

High

Privileges Required

Low

Low

User Interaction

None

None

Scope

Changed

Changed

Confidentiality Impact

High

High

Integrity Impact

None

None

Availability Impact

None

None

CVSS v3 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

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Julian Stecklina (Amazon.de), Thomas Prescher (cyberus-technology.de), and Zdenek Sojka (sysgo.com) for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?

  • "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
  • The term "Affected" means that our Analysis team has determined that this product, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 or OpenShift Container Platform 4, is affected by this vulnerability and a fix may be released to address this issue in the near future. This includes all minor releases of this product unless noted otherwise in the Statement text.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
  • Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

A mitigation is an action that can be taken to reduce the impact of a security vulnerability, without deploying any fixes.

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

The listed products were found to include one or more of the components that this vulnerability affects. These products underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their affectedness by this vulnerability. Note that layered products (such as container-based offerings) that consume affected components from any of the products listed in this table may be affected and are not represented.

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.

My product is listed as "Out of Support Scope". What does this mean?

When a product is listed as "Out of Support Scope", it means a vulnerability with the impact level assigned to this CVE is no longer covered by its current support lifecycle phase. The product has been identified to contain the impacted component, but analysis to determine whether it is affected or not by this vulnerability was not performed. The product should be assumed to be affected. Customers are advised to apply any mitigation options documented on this page, consider removing or disabling the impacted component, or upgrade to a supported version of the product that has an update available.

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