Intel CPU design flaw - FreeBSD affected?

[Mark Millard]

Darren Reed darrenr at freebsd.org wrote on
Thu Jan 4 11:56:29 UTC 2018 :

> Most people are only talking about meltdown which doesn't hit AMD.
> spectre impacts *both* Intel and AMD.
> 
> SuSE are making available a microcode patch for AMD 17h processors that
> disables branch prediction:
> 
> 
> https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2018-01/msg00004.html

https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution

reports. . .

For the Bounds Check Bypass Spectre variant (#1):

Resolved by software / OS updates to be made available
by system vendors and manufacturers. Negligible performance
impact expected.

For the Branch Target Injection Spectre variant (#2):

Differences in AMD architecture mean there is a near zero
risk of exploitation of this variant. Vulnerability to
Variant 2 has not been demonstrated on AMD processors to
date.

For the Rogue Data Cache Load Meltdown variant (#3):

Zero AMD vulnerability due to AMD architecture differences.



How long #2 will have a "has not been demonstrated" status
is yet to be seen.

===
Mark Millard
markmi at dsl-only.net