Meltdown and Spectre security flaws

Description

Information regarding the impact of Meltdown and Spectre countermeasures on Qlik products can be found on our official Support Blog.   The information therein will be updated according to the progress made by vendors.

What are Meltdown and Spectre security flaws?

Extract from https://meltdownattack.com/

Meltdown and Spectre exploit critical vulnerabilities in modern processors. These hardware vulnerabilities allow programs to steal data which is currently processed on the computer. While programs are typically not permitted to read data from other programs, a malicious program can exploit Meltdown and Spectre to get hold of secrets stored in the memory of other running programs. This might include your passwords stored in a password manager or browser, your personal photos, emails, instant messages and even business-critical documents.

Meltdown and Spectre work on personal computers, mobile devices, and in the cloud. Depending on the cloud provider's infrastructure, it might be possible to steal data from other customers.

 

Am I affected by the vulnerability?

Most certainly, yes.

Can I detect if someone has exploited Meltdown or Spectre against me?

Probably not. The exploitation does not leave any traces in traditional log files.

Can my antivirus detect or block this attack?

While possible in theory, this is unlikely in practice. Unlike usual malware, Meltdown and Spectre are hard to distinguish from regular benign applications. However, your antivirus may detect malware which uses the attacks by comparing binaries after they become known.

What can be leaked?

If your system is affected, passwords and sensitive data stored on the system may be hacked.

Has Meltdown or Spectre been abused in the wild?

We don't know.

Is there a workaround/fix?

There are patches against Meltdown for Linux ( KPTI (formerly KAISER)), Windows, and OS X. There is also work to harden software against future exploitation of Spectre, respectively to patch software after exploitation through Spectre ( LLVM patch,  ARM speculation barrier header).

Which systems are affected by Meltdown?

Desktop, Laptop, and Cloud computers may be affected by Meltdown. More technically, every Intel processor which implements out-of-order execution is potentially affected, which is effectively every processor since 1995 (except Intel Itanium and Intel Atom before 2013). We successfully tested Meltdown on Intel processor generations released as early as 2011. Currently, we have only verified Meltdown on Intel processors. At the moment, it is unclear whether AMD processors are also affected by Meltdown.  According to ARM, some of their processors are also affected.

Which systems are affected by Spectre?

Almost every system is affected by Spectre: Desktops, Laptops, Cloud Servers, as well as Smartphones. More specifically, all modern processors capable of keeping many instructions in flight are potentially vulnerable. In particular, we have verified Spectre on Intel, AMD, and ARM processors.

Resolution

At Qlik, our R&D team have conducted thorough testing regarding this and will continue to do so as further patches and updates are made available. For the time being, no conclusive information is available.

Information regarding the impact of Meltdown and Spectre countermeasures on Qlik products can be found on our official Support Blog.   The information therein will be updated according to the progress made by vendors.

 Note: The number of tested scenarios is limited (only Intel chipsets, a small amount of Windows Server 2012 R2/2016  tests, and no Qlik Sense Cloud tests) and there may be scenarios where the impact of the patches is more critical. Further updates will be posted on demand.

Disclaimer

Access to this article is provided to you as part of your subscription to Qlik Maintenance. This article is deemed to be “Documentation” under the terms of the license agreement applicable to your Qlik software. All rights reserved © QlikTech International AB.