Expect your computer to become slower

[HansV]

'Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

[stuck]

Did I hear someone say, "Happy New year"?

[John Gray]

Somehow I see a class action from the entire world!

[Rudi]

Ahhhh.... more coffee breaks!

[Argus]

What a democratic flaw this is, Meltdown & Spectre; there's something for everyone!

[Argus]

What a democratic flaw this is, Meltdown & Spectre; there's something for everyone!

And yet slower.
Side channel attacks; the gift that keeps on giving (and eventually your hardware will be too old to get a fix, then at least you will not get some extra slowdown added).

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... y/mds.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US ... /ADV190013" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To protect your system from these vulnerabilities, Microsoft recommends that you take the following actions, and refer to the subsequent sections for links to further information for your specific situation:

1. The best protection is to keep computers up to date. This includes installing OS and microcode updates. [which microcode updates? ]

* To be fully protected, customers may also need to disable Hyper-Threading ...

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/1 ... erability/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48278400" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[John Gray]

The best protection is to keep computers up to date. This includes installing OS and microcode updates. [which microcode updates? ]

I think they have some old IBM mainframe systems programmers on their staff. They haven't realised that the term on PCs is 'firmware'...
{It's the same principle, though, whatever name it is given.]

[Argus]

My emphasise was more on "updates".
Example: Asus motherboard bought early 2015 (released 2014; Intel Z97 chip, 3 years warranty), i.e. 4th generation Intel CPU, or "4th refresh"; then along comes speculative side-channel attacks, publicly disclosed Jan 2018. Result in this example: a final BIOS update released as a beta version. And now Spectre and Meltdown got some company from MDS vulnerabilities mentioned above.

MSFT has updated their page about these nasties.

Microsoft has released updates to help mitigate these vulnerabilities. To get all available protections, firmware (microcode) and software updates are required. This may include microcode from device OEMs. In some cases, installing these updates will have a performance impact. We have also acted to secure our cloud services.

They can call it whatever they prefer, if I get updates I'm happy.

[viking33]

So would someone please explain all this gibberish in plain old easy to understand language?

[HansV]

Mainly: keep Windows updated.

[Argus]

Some more articles.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/wh ... -meltdown/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/sp ... essionals/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-cpu ... el-attack/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Among the "good news":

Furthermore, in its own technical paper on the MDS attacks, Intel also points out other issues with this attack that makes it highly unlikely that Zombieload and its two brethren flaws would ever be used in a real-world scenario:

- These structures are much smaller than the first level data cache (L1D), and therefore hold less data and are overwritten more frequently.
- As with other speculative execution side channels, exploiting these vulnerabilities outside of a laboratory environment is extremely complex relative to other methods that attackers have at their disposal.
- It is also more difficult to use MDS attacks to infer data that is associated with a specific memory address, which may require the malicious actor to collect significant amounts of data to analyze and locate any secret data.
- Only recently accessed data can be leaked with one of these MDS attacks.
- Turning off hyperthreading prevents attacks.