Spectre and Meltdown CPU Vulnerability Test and Microcode Update on Linux

[TWPonKubuntu]

This is a good (IMO) synopsis of how to handle the mitigations and fixes for Spectre and Meltdown.

I debated just tagging this on the end of a prior thread about these two problems. I think a separate thread make more sense after several months.

https://www.howtoforge.com/spectre-a...date-on-linux/

Future users will probably still face these two "vulnerabilities", particularly those on old hardware.

I'm reading current (Nov. 2018) reports of attacks using one or the other of these two.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/resear...ectre-attacks/

[vinnywright]

you do know that our Ubuntu/Kubuntu kernels have been being patched for this for some time now ,,,, right.

if you ,,,,

vinny@vinny-bonox8:~$ ls /boot 
abi-4.15.0-23-generic     config-4.18.0-12-generic      memtest86+.elf                System.map-4.15.0-38-generic
abi-4.15.0-38-generic     grub                          memtest86+_multiboot.bin      System.map-4.18.0-11-generic
abi-4.18.0-11-generic     initrd.img-4.15.0-23-generic  retpoline-4.15.0-23-generic   System.map-4.18.0-12-generic
abi-4.18.0-12-generic     initrd.img-4.15.0-38-generic  retpoline-4.15.0-38-generic   vmlinuz-4.15.0-23-generic
config-4.15.0-23-generic  initrd.img-4.18.0-11-generic  retpoline-4.18.0-11-generic   vmlinuz-4.15.0-38-generic
config-4.15.0-38-generic  initrd.img-4.18.0-12-generic  retpoline-4.18.0-12-generic   vmlinuz-4.18.0-11-generic
config-4.18.0-11-generic  memtest86+.bin                System.map-4.15.0-23-generic  vmlinuz-4.18.0-12-generic

and see the "retpoline" that matches your running kernel you are running the patches , most likely

VINNY

[TWPonKubuntu]

Vinny, yes I am aware. I do keep my systems up-to-date. I've posted about it before, here on KF.

I post this because it is a concise set of information about the problem.

It is possible that new forum readers will not do a search to find the old threads about the problem code... I know, shocked that they might not do that, right?

These two exploits are still being encountered, see the second link in my thread starting post.