RAPID RESPONSE: Intel Chip Vulnerability - Foreshadow (CVE-2018-3620 & CVE-2018-3646)
August 2018 by Red Hat
On Tuesday a new speculative execution vulnerability that affects modern microprocessors from Intel - CVE-2018-3620 and CVE-2018-3646, a.k.a. L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) or Foreshadow - was publicly disclosed.
Similar in nature to Spectre and Meltdown, L1TF involves speculative execution and uses a cache side-channel to exfiltrate data that should not normally be visible. Unlike the previous vulnerabilities, this new one involves part of the CPU known as the MMU (Memory Management Unit), and in particular, a subcomponent called the page table walker that is used to implement virtual memory.
Red Hat has been working on this issue with a cross-industry group of hardware partners and software peers to provide mitigations for impacted end-users. We have several resources that help explain this new vulnerability.
· Vulnerability article: https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/L1TF
· Blog post explaining the vulnerability: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/understanding-l1-terminal-fault-aka-foreshadow-what-you-need-know
· Video explaining the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBOsVt0iXE4
· Technical "briefing" video: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/deeper-look-l1-terminal-fault-aka-foreshadow