Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

Rademes · 2018-01-13 18:50

crosscourt · 2018-01-13 19:01

Friend of mine works in the Silicon Valley of Virginia, the Dulles tech corridor and its been a nightmare for him with the volume of companies scrambling to patch their systems. How many systems do you have to patch at work tlmiller?

To jackdanielsesq, I wish that were the case but so far this year three hacks at various companies has given me free credit screening and a number of incidents already. A number of friends and clients have had incidents even after doing everything right because new issues keep cropping up. Knowing and understanding is important and acting is all we can do to try and protect ourselves.
In regards to the patches, the combination of software patches and bios update is the best course of action.
As tlmiller explained the ivy Bridge cpus got some bios updates which is good news and the Arrandale processors got microcode as I know some of our members here use systems with these processors.

As I said to Dai all he had to do is contact the devs and combine the threads if thats the preference but reading long threads to find certain specifics can get frustrating. I understand people have preferences and I respect that, but others feel differently. Its not a big deal honestly.

Thanks for the link, Rademes!

Last edited by crosscourt (2018-01-13 19:08)

jackdanielsesq · 2018-01-13 20:17

Most IT folks couldnt manage a ham sandwich - there is a lot of data [most] that should not be any where near the net, but every HR wonk wants to look through
the corporate medical records using his fakefone, and their newly appointed reticulation engineer figures he wants to be able to fire-up a couple Frame 9's from
his hypocritical-zero-emission vehicle [Tesla] that runs off a very dirty fossil-fuel burning grid - the one we all use

Imagine the chaos at 50,000 ft if we let these clowns have their way with your favorite B777-300ER flight deck computer .... Wall St, if anyone, made out like the
bandits they are - us mere mortals have little sway over these issues.. if they really were issues, until made public ... just so long as the Bitcoin miners dont hijack
my mosheen too often ...other than to be an alarmist - dont feed the trolls, we say in the classics

Jack

crosscourt wrote:

Friend of mine works in the Silicon Valley of Virginia, the Dulles tech corridor and its been a nightmare for him with the volume of companies scrambling to patch their systems. How many systems do you have to patch at work tlmiller?
To jackdanielsesq, I wish that were the case but so far this year three hacks at various companies has given me free credit screening and a number of incidents already. A number of friends and clients have had incidents even after doing everything right because new issues keep cropping up. Knowing and understanding is important and acting is all we can do to try and protect ourselves.
In regards to the patches, the combination of software patches and bios update is the best course of action.
As tlmiller explained the ivy Bridge cpus got some bios updates which is good news and the Arrandale processors got microcode as I know some of our members here use systems with these processors.
As I said to Dai all he had to do is contact the devs and combine the threads if thats the preference but reading long threads to find certain specifics can get frustrating. I understand people have preferences and I respect that, but others feel differently. Its not a big deal honestly.
Thanks for the link, Rademes!

tlmiller76 · 2018-01-13 20:48

crosscourt wrote:

Friend of mine works in the Silicon Valley of Virginia, the Dulles tech corridor and its been a nightmare for him with the volume of companies scrambling to patch their systems. How many systems do you have to patch at work tlmiller?
To jackdanielsesq, I wish that were the case but so far this year three hacks at various companies has given me free credit screening and a number of incidents already. A number of friends and clients have had incidents even after doing everything right because new issues keep cropping up. Knowing and understanding is important and acting is all we can do to try and protect ourselves.
In regards to the patches, the combination of software patches and bios update is the best course of action.
As tlmiller explained the ivy Bridge cpus got some bios updates which is good news and the Arrandale processors got microcode as I know some of our members here use systems with these processors.
As I said to Dai all he had to do is contact the devs and combine the threads if thats the preference but reading long threads to find certain specifics can get frustrating. I understand people have preferences and I respect that, but others feel differently. Its not a big deal honestly.
Thanks for the link, Rademes!

It's actually not too bad for me, I've only got about 100 physical systems that I have to patch. Everything else is a VM running on Nutanix which we've just updated the Nutanix since I needed to upgrade to enable Acropolis File Systems.

crosscourt · 2018-01-13 21:45

The way Im going Ill be around 100, LOL!! Dont work too hard.

tlmiller76 · 2018-01-14 04:12

crosscourt wrote:

The way Im going Ill be around 100, LOL!! Dont work too hard.

The next couple weeks I actually probably will. I need to get our current SFA solution retired before we move the weekend of the 26th. Our server rooms got more than 1/2'd, so in our MDF we literally have 2 racks for everything. UPS's, wire management, servers, switches, routers, appliances, EVERYTHING... So simply put, we CANNOT mount the giant 8u (total) netapp we're currently using, and we don't any longer have a second office to mount the second netapp for snap backups (haven't for a couple months now, so we haven't had any backup solution since the second office closed), so absolutely necessary to get migrated to the AFS solution. Then the weekend of the 26th we have to move EVERYTHING to the new building, get it all racked, powered up, reconfigured (what needs to be), and working so that the company can function on Monday morning the 29th...

crosscourt · 2018-01-14 04:18

Ouch! A friend of mine just went thru something similar and was hating life given the limited time they got to accomplish the move. Reminded me of our video gaming days, when we wouldnt sleep for days at a time.

tlmiller76 · 2018-01-14 04:36

Yeah, luckily I'm not in charge anymore (so glad they hired a manager), so I'm not the one getting berated!!

crosscourt · 2018-01-14 05:03

I hate being a manager myself. you can never win, its always something wrong.

tlmiller76 · 2018-01-14 06:57

crosscourt wrote:

I hate being a manager myself. you can never win, its always something wrong.

Agreed. I did management at 3 different companies and realized that the money is NOWHERE worth the headache to me.

crosscourt · 2018-01-14 19:06

In my case the money wasnt a huge improvement so it really isnt worth it.

tlmiller76 · 2018-01-16 19:00

So, I was reading Lenovo's site, and it appears they are planning a patch for my T430!!

ThinkPad T430, T430i 2342, 2344, 2345, 2347, 2349 Target availability 2/2/2018 1/8/2018 Researching 1/14/2018

also, the T450s update was withdrawn...so hopefully when they put the newer patch up for that, I won't have issues since I DO have that withdrawn update on mine...

Last edited by tlmiller76 (2018-01-16 19:03)

crosscourt · 2018-01-16 20:43

It appears alot of hardware is getting patches that wasnt originally planned. Intel due to class action suits may have to patch many more cpus than they had planned originally.

Rademes · 2018-01-17 18:43

I am waiting new Q4OS release with patched kernel for my old notebook... Linux Mint has already released patched kernels for Mint 17 and Mint 18 a week ago. https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3496

Last edited by Rademes (2018-01-17 18:44)

crosscourt · 2018-01-17 21:25

Patches already came out with the revised 4.9 kernel released for debian 9. Depends on your cpuy as you may have to do a bios update such as I had to do for my Optiplex systems. Dell came out with the a26 bios for the Ivy Bridge processors.

OldCodger · 2018-01-19 18:43

Apologies for going slightly off Q4OS topic but I thought some people may be running
Windows alongside Q4OS (either dual boot or VM) and here's something you should be aware of
regarding the Meltdown patches for Windows.

Microsoft shipped their Patch Tuesday fix early to include mitigations for Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754).
However, it was not well advertised (well not at all from what I could tell) but the Windows 7
patch KB4056894 did not include any mitigation for Meltdown.
Belatedly they updated the Security Advisory ADV180002 to include this fact in the FAQ section.
The advisory can be found here,
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US … /ADV180002
look at FAQ section, number 7.

In fact the statement implies that none of the 32-bit versions of Windows have a Meltdown
mitigation - which I assume includes Windows 10.

Last edited by OldCodger (2018-01-19 18:44)

crosscourt · 2018-01-19 23:26

In regards to win7/8/10 even with the patches you need a bios update for your cpu to gain proper protection. Patches for 64bit OS have gone out as ive been installing them all week. 32bit patches Im assuming will need a bit more time but some hardware will not get cpu fixes thus youll need to make sure patches are offered not just for your OS but for your browsers and virus protection

Many people couldnt get the patches because their virus protection wasnt updated so that caused some issues. If your system is properly updated Windows update will offer or install the updates based on your system and OS.

Last edited by crosscourt (2018-01-19 23:28)

OldCodger · 2018-01-20 10:03

Agreed, the fixes for Spectre need both changes to software and hardware (microcode) as
they affect the Branch Prediction mechanism. In fact, some of the changes work purely
in the software - the so called retpoline change works by changing the way branches are
taken within code.

However, Meltdown was addressed purely by removing almost all the kernel page mapping
from an address space, leaving I assume, just some stubs so system calls could still work.

Microsoft were not very clear at stating that, even after you'd applied KB4056894 on a 32-bit
system, you still had no mitigation for Meltdown.

crosscourt · 2018-01-20 18:19

Those fixes are needed for both Meltdown and Spectre. Microcode could come thru bios update or thru updates such as you see with Linux.
Its a very fluid situation depending on the OS and hardware involved. Most of the information Im giving you and discussing is coming from Intel tech bulletins and info Im getting from Dell.

Those of you with Ivy bridge systems check with your OEM as Dell made a bios update for my Dell Optiplex 7010 systems, A26.

Also any system using Intel ME needs an update thru a bios update not just for Meltdown/Spectre but also for other issues previous to this situation. Check with your OEM to see what you can do.

jackdanielsesq · 2018-01-21 09:57

Microsqish has not been very clear on anything since it wrecked XP - they are actually a complete disgrace

My latest Skypeforlinux dashboard looks like it came off some county-fair pony ride - complete insanity

Tons of emojiis & bot search buttons, but the app hardly works anymore - typical Indian [MS] vaporware

The 'spectacular meltdown' to which y'all allude... other than titilating Wall St, for a couple nanoseconds,
went over like last years DVD Rewinder - still have several if anybody needs a couple - great wedding gifts

Strangely, our world is intact, despite NSA/CIA/USSR's best efforts - thanks to our backroom boys & girls

This fresh Q4 install has a Swedish spell-checker invoked - any ideas?

Regards

Jack

OldCodger wrote:

..........Microsoft were not very clear at stating that, even after you'd applied KB4056894
on a 32-bit system, you still had no mitigation for Meltdown.

Attachments:

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bin · 2018-01-21 13:05

Jag föreslår att det kan vara ett installationsfel

jackdanielsesq · 2018-01-21 13:36

Konstigt bara i Firefox och Thunderbird smile

crosscourt · 2018-01-21 18:57

Microsoft is a pain in the rear but Ive been impressed with how good the info has been from Intel but AMD initially was pretty vague.

jackdanielsesq · 2018-01-23 10:49

Finally somebody with a functioning brain - Bravo - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/2 … fix_linux/

crosscourt · 2018-01-23 21:02

Linus rants too much but read David Woodhouse comments in that article, as they make understanding the problems a bit easier. theregister likes to make articles as spectacular as possible like the one about AMD and all their vague tech papers.

My comments about Intel were about Meltdown as Spectre has been a complete pain in the ass for everyone involved plus the ridiculous reboot issues.

Last edited by crosscourt (2018-01-23 21:04)

Q4OS Forum

#26 2018-01-13 18:50

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#27 2018-01-13 19:01

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#28 2018-01-13 20:17

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#29 2018-01-13 20:48

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#30 2018-01-13 21:45

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#31 2018-01-14 04:12

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#32 2018-01-14 04:18

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#33 2018-01-14 04:36

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#34 2018-01-14 05:03

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#35 2018-01-14 06:57

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#36 2018-01-14 19:06

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#37 2018-01-16 19:00

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#38 2018-01-16 20:43

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#39 2018-01-17 18:43

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#40 2018-01-17 21:25

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#41 2018-01-19 18:43

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#42 2018-01-19 23:26

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#43 2018-01-20 10:03

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#44 2018-01-20 18:19

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#45 2018-01-21 09:57

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#46 2018-01-21 13:05

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#47 2018-01-21 13:36

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#48 2018-01-21 18:57

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#49 2018-01-23 10:49

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

#50 2018-01-23 21:02

Re: Spectre and meltdown- What you need to know going forward

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