Transient execution CPU vulnerabilities are vulnerabilities in which instructions, most often optimized using speculative execution, are executed temporarily by a microprocessor, without committing their results due to a misprediction or error, resulting in leaking secret data to an unauthorized party. The archetype is Spectre, and transient execution attacks like Spectre belong to the cache-attack category, one of several categories of side-channel attacks. Since January 2018 many different cache-attack vulnerabilities have been identified.
Modern computers are highly parallel devices, composed of components with very different performance characteristics. If an operation (such as a branch) cannot yet be performed because some earlier slow operation (such as a memory read) has not yet completed, a microprocessor may attempt to predict the result of the earlier operation and execute the later operation speculatively, acting as if the prediction were correct. The prediction may be based on recent behavior of the system. When the earlier, slower operation completes, the microprocessor determines whether the prediction was correct or incorrect. If it was correct then execution proceeds uninterrupted; if it was incorrect then the microprocessor rolls back the speculatively executed operations and repeats the original instruction with the real result of the slow operation. Specifically, a transient instruction [1] refers to an instruction processed by error by the processor (incriminating the branch predictor in the case of Spectre) which can affect the micro-architectural state of the processor, leaving the architectural state without any trace of its execution.
In terms of the directly visible behavior of the computer it is as if the speculatively executed code "never happened". However, this speculative execution may affect the state of certain components of the microprocessor, such as the cache, and this effect may be discovered by careful monitoring of the timing of subsequent operations.
If an attacker can arrange that the speculatively executed code (which may be directly written by the attacker, or may be a suitable gadget that they have found in the targeted system) operates on secret data that they are unauthorized to access, and has a different effect on the cache for different values of the secret data, they may be able to discover the value of the secret data.
In early January 2018, it was reported that all Intel processors made since 1995 [2] [3] (besides Intel Itanium and pre-2013 Intel Atom) have been subject to two security flaws dubbed Meltdown and Spectre. [4] [5]
The impact on performance resulting from software patches is "workload-dependent". Several procedures to help protect home computers and related devices from the Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities have been published. [6] [7] [8] [9] Spectre patches have been reported to significantly slow down performance, especially on older computers; on the newer 8th-generation Core platforms, benchmark performance drops of 2–14% have been measured. [10] Meltdown patches may also produce performance loss. [11] [12] [13] It is believed that "hundreds of millions" of systems could be affected by these flaws. [3] [14] More security flaws were disclosed on May 3, 2018, [15] on August 14, 2018, on January 18, 2019, and on March 5, 2020. [16] [17] [18] [19]
At the time, Intel was not commenting on this issue. [20] [21]
On March 15, 2018, Intel reported that it will redesign its CPUs (performance losses to be determined) to protect against the Spectre security vulnerability, and expects to release the newly redesigned processors later in 2018. [22] [23]
On May 3, 2018, eight additional Spectre-class flaws were reported. Intel reported that they are preparing new patches to mitigate these flaws. [24]
On August 14, 2018, Intel disclosed three additional chip flaws referred to as L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF). They reported that previously released microcode updates, along with new, pre-release microcode updates can be used to mitigate these flaws. [25] [26]
On January 18, 2019, Intel disclosed three new vulnerabilities affecting all Intel CPUs, named "Fallout", "RIDL", and "ZombieLoad", allowing a program to read information recently written, read data in the line-fill buffers and load ports, and leak information from other processes and virtual machines. [27] [28] [29] Coffee Lake-series CPUs are even more vulnerable, due to hardware mitigations for Spectre.[ citation needed ] [30]
On March 5, 2020, computer security experts reported another Intel chip security flaw, besides the Meltdown and Spectre flaws, with the systematic name CVE - 2019-0090 (or "Intel CSME Bug"). [16] This newly found flaw is not fixable with a firmware update, and affects nearly "all Intel chips released in the past five years". [17] [18] [19]
In March 2021 AMD security researchers discovered that the Predictive Store Forwarding algorithm in Zen 3 CPUs could be used by malicious applications to access data it shouldn't be accessing. [31] According to Phoronix there's little performance impact in disabling the feature. [32]
In June 2021, two new vulnerabilities, Speculative Code Store Bypass (SCSB, CVE-2021-0086) and Floating Point Value Injection (FPVI, CVE-2021-0089), affecting all modern x86-64 CPUs both from Intel and AMD were discovered. [33] In order to mitigate them software has to be rewritten and recompiled. ARM CPUs are not affected by SCSB but some certain ARM architectures are affected by FPVI. [34]
Also in June 2021, MIT researchers revealed the PACMAN attack on Pointer Authentication Codes (PAC) in ARM v8.3A. [35] [36] [37]
In August 2021 a vulnerability called "Transient Execution of Non-canonical Accesses" affecting certain AMD CPUs was disclosed. [38] [39] [40] It requires the same mitigations as the MDS vulnerability affecting certain Intel CPUs. [41] It was assigned CVE-2020-12965. Since most x86 software is already patched against MDS and this vulnerability has the exact same mitigations, software vendors don't have to address this vulnerability.
In October 2021 for the first time ever a vulnerability similar to Meltdown was disclosed [42] [43] to be affecting all AMD CPUs however the company doesn't think any new mitigations have to be applied and the existing ones are already sufficient. [44]
In March 2022, a new variant of the Spectre vulnerability called Branch History Injection was disclosed. [45] [46] It affects certain ARM64 CPUs [47] and the following Intel CPU families: Cascade Lake, Ice Lake, Tiger Lake and Alder Lake. According to Linux kernel developers AMD CPUs are also affected. [48]
In March 2022, a vulnerability affecting a wide range of AMD CPUs was disclosed under CVE-2021-26341. [49] [50]
In June 2022, multiple MMIO Intel CPUs vulnerabilities related to execution in virtual environments were announced. [51] The following CVEs were designated: CVE-2022-21123, CVE-2022-21125, CVE-2022-21166.
In July 2022, the Retbleed vulnerability was disclosed affecting Intel Core 6 to 8th generation CPUs and AMD Zen 1, 1+ and 2 generation CPUs. Newer Intel microarchitectures as well as AMD starting with Zen 3 are not affected. The mitigations for the vulnerability decrease the performance of the affected Intel CPUs by up to 39%, while AMD CPUs lose up to 14%.
In August 2022, the SQUIP vulnerability was disclosed affecting Ryzen 2000–5000 series CPUs. [52] According to AMD the existing mitigations are enough to protect from it. [53]
According to a Phoronix review released in October, 2022 Zen 4/Ryzen 7000 CPUs are not slowed down by mitigations, in fact disabling them leads to a performance loss. [54] [55]
In February 2023 a vulnerability affecting a wide range of AMD CPU architectures called "Cross-Thread Return Address Predictions" was disclosed. [56] [57] [58]
In July 2023 a critical vulnerability in the Zen 2 AMD microarchitecture called Zenbleed was made public. [59] AMD released a microcode update to fix it. [60]
In August 2023 a vulnerability in AMD's Zen 1, Zen 2, Zen 3, and Zen 4 microarchitectures called Inception [61] [62] was revealed and assigned CVE-2023-20569. According to AMD it is not practical but the company will release a microcode update for the affected products.
Also in August 2023 a new vulnerability called Downfall or Gather Data Sampling was disclosed, [63] [64] [65] affecting Intel CPU Skylake, Cascade Lake, Cooper Lake, Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, Amber Lake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake, Comet Lake & Rocket Lake CPU families. Intel will release a microcode update for affected products.
The SLAM [66] [67] [68] [69] vulnerability (Spectre based on Linear Address Masking) reported in 2023 neither has received a corresponding CVE, nor has been confirmed or mitigated against.
In March 2024, a variant of Spectre-V1 attack called GhostRace was published. [70] It was claimed it affected all the major microarchitectures and vendors, including Intel, AMD and ARM. It was assigned CVE-2024-2193. AMD dismissed the vulnerability (calling it "Speculative Race Conditions (SRCs)") claiming that existing mitigations were enough. [71] Linux kernel developers chose not to add mitigations citing performance concerns. [72] The Xen hypervisor project released patches to mitigate the vulnerability but they are not enabled by default. [73]
Also in March 2024, a vulnerability in Intel Atom processors called Register File Data Sampling (RFDS) was revealed. [74] It was assigned CVE-2023-28746. Its mitigations incur a slight performance degradation. [75]
In April 2024, it was revealed that the BHI vulnerability in certain Intel CPU families could be still exploited in Linux entirely in user space without using any kernel features or root access despite existing mitigations. [76] [77] [78] Intel recommended "additional software hardening". [79] The attack was assigned CVE-2024-2201.
In June 2024, Samsung Research and Seoul National University researchers revealed the TikTag attack against the Memory Tagging Extension in ARM v8.5A CPUs. The researchers created PoCs for Google Chrome and the Linux kernel. [80] [81] [82] [83] Researchers from VUSec previously revealed ARM's Memory Tagging Extension is vulnerable to speculative probing. [84] [85]
In July 2024, UC San Diego researchers revealed the Indirector attack against Intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs leveraging high-precision Branch Target Injection (BTI). [86] [87] [88] Intel downplayed the severity of the vulnerability and claimed the existing mitigations are enough to tackle the issue. [89] No CVE was assigned.
In January, 2025 Georgia Institute of Technology researchers published two whitepapers on Data Speculation Attacks via Load Address Prediction on Apple Silicon (SLAP) and Breaking the Apple M3 CPU via False Load Output Predictions (FLOP). [90] [91] [92]
Spectre class vulnerabilities will remain unfixed because otherwise CPU designers will have to disable speculative execution which will entail a massive performance loss.[ citation needed ] Despite this, AMD has managed to design Zen 4 such a way its performance is not affected by mitigations. [54] [55]
Mitigation Type | Comprehensiveness | Effectiveness | Performance impact | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
Hardware | Full | Full | None to small | Require changes to the CPU design and thus a new iteration of hardware |
Microcode | Partial to full | Partial to full | None to large | Updates the software that the CPU runs on which requires patches to be released for each affected CPU and integrated into every BIOS or operating system |
OS/VMM | Partial | Partial to full | Small to large | Applied at the operating system or virtual machine level and (depending on workload) |
Software recompilation | Poor | Partial to full | Medium to large | Requires recompiling lots of pieces of software |
Vulnerability Name(s)/Subname Official Name/Subname | CVE | Affected CPU architectures and mitigations | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Intel [93] | AMD [94] | |||||||||
10th gen | 9th gen | 8th gen* | Zen / Zen+ | Zen 2 [95] | ||||||
Ice Lake [96] | Cascade / Comet / Amber Lake | Coffee Lake [97] | Whiskey Lake | Coffee Lake, Amber Lake | ||||||
Spectre | v1 Bounds Check Bypass | CVE- 2017-5753 | Software recompilation [41] | |||||||
v2 Branch Target Injection [98] | CVE- 2017-5715 | Hardware + OS/VMM / Software recompilation | Microcode + ... | Microcode + OS/VMM / Software recompilation | Hardware + OS/VMM / Software recompilation | |||||
Hardware + ... [a] | ||||||||||
Meltdown / v3 Rogue Data Cache Load | CVE- 2017-5754 | Hardware | OS | Not affected | ||||||
Spectre-NG | v3a Rogue System Register Read | CVE- 2018-3640 | Hardware | Hardware | Microcode | Microcode | Microcode | |||
Microcode [b] | Hardware [a] | |||||||||
v4 Speculative Store Bypass [99] | CVE- 2018-3639 | [Hardware + OS / ] Software recompilation | ... | [Microcode + OS / ] Software recompilation | OS/VMM | Hardware + OS/VMM | ||||
... [a] | ||||||||||
Lazy FP State Restore | CVE- 2018-3665 | OS/VMM [100] | Not affected | |||||||
v1.1 Bounds Check Bypass Store | CVE- 2018-3693 | Software recompilation [101] | ||||||||
SpectreRSB [102] /ret2spec [103] Return Mispredict | CVE- 2018-15572 | OS [104] | ||||||||
Foreshadow L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) [105] | SGX | CVE- 2018-3615 | Not affected | Microcode | Not affected | |||||
OS/SMM | CVE- 2018-3620 | Microcode + OS/VMM | ||||||||
VMM | CVE- 2018-3646 | |||||||||
Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) [106] [107] | RIDL | ZombieLoad Fill Buffer (MFBDS) | CVE- 2018-12130 | Microcode + OS | ||||||
Load Port (MLPDS) | CVE- 2018-12127 | Hardware | Microcode + OS/VMM [c] | |||||||
Hardware [a] | ||||||||||
Fallout Store Buffer (MSBDS) | CVE- 2018-12126 | Hardware + Microcode [108] [109] | Microcode + OS/VMM [c] | Microcode + OS/VMM | ||||||
Hardware [a] | ||||||||||
RIDL | Uncacheable Memory (MDSUM) | CVE- 2019-11091 | Same as the buffer having entries | |||||||
SWAPGS [110] [111] [112] | CVE- 2019-1125 | OS | ||||||||
RIDL (Rogue In-Flight Data Load) | ZombieLoad v2 [113] [114] TSX Asynchronous Abort (TAA) [115] [116] | CVE- 2019-11135 | Hardware [d] | Microcode + OS/VMM | Existing MDS mitigations | Existing MDS mitigations | ||||
TSX not supported [b] | Microcode + OS/VMM [a] | |||||||||
ZombieLoad/CacheOut L1D Eviction Sampling (L1DES) [117] [118] [119] | CVE- 2020-0549 | Not affected | Microcode | Microcode | ||||||
Not affected [b] | ||||||||||
Vector Register Sampling (VRS) [118] [119] | CVE- 2020-0548 | Microcode | ||||||||
Not affected [b] | ||||||||||
Load Value Injection (LVI) [120] [121] [122] [123] | CVE- 2020-0551 | Software recompilation (mainly for Intel SGX) | ||||||||
CROSSTalk [124] Special Register Buffer Data Sampling (SRBDS) [125] | CVE- 2020-0543 | Microcode [e] | Microcode | |||||||
Not affected | ||||||||||
Floating Point Value Injection (FPVI) [126] [127] | CVE- 2021-0086 CVE- 2021-26314 | Software recompilation | ||||||||
Speculative Code Store Bypass (SCSB) [128] [127] | CVE- 2021-0089 CVE- 2021-26313 | |||||||||
Branch History Injection (BHI) [129] and other forms of intra-mode BTI | CVE- 2022-0001 CVE- 2022-0002 | Software recompilation | Not affected | Not affected | ||||||
Software recompilation [a] | ||||||||||
MMIO Stale Data [130] | Shared Buffers Data Read (SBDR) | CVE- 2022-21123 | Microcode + Software recompilation | Software recompilation | Not affected | |||||
Shared Buffers Data Sampling (SBDS) | CVE- 2022-21125 | |||||||||
Device Register Partial Write (DRPW) | CVE- 2022-21166 | Microcode | Existing MDS mitigations | |||||||
Branch Type Confusion (BTC) [131] | Phantom [132] | BTC-NOBR BTC-DIR | CVE- 2022-23825 | Not affected | OS/VMM | |||||
BTC-IND | Existing Spectre v2 mitigations | |||||||||
Retbleed [133] [134] [135] [136] BTC-RET | CVE- 2022-29900 CVE- 2022-29901 | Not affected | OS/VMM | OS/VMM | OS/VMM / Software recompilation | |||||
Not affected [a] | ||||||||||
Cross-Thread Return Address Predictions [57] [56] | CVE- 2022-27672 | Not affected | OS/VMM | |||||||
Zenbleed [137] Cross-Process Information Leak [138] [139] | CVE- 2023-20593 | Not affected | Microcode | |||||||
Inception [132] [61] [140] Speculative Return Stack Overflow (SRSO) | CVE- 2023-20569 | Not affected | OS/VMM | |||||||
Downfall [64] [65] Gather Data Sampling (GDS) [63] | CVE- 2022-40982 | Microcode | Not affected |
The 8th generation Coffee Lake architecture in this table also applies to a wide range of previously released Intel CPUs, not limited to the architectures based on Intel Core, Pentium 4 and Intel Atom starting with Silvermont. [141] [142] Various CPU microarchitectures not included above are also affected, among them are ARM, IBM Power, MIPS and others. [143] [144] [145] [146]
RDRAND
is an instruction for returning random numbers from an Intel on-chip hardware random number generator which has been seeded by an on-chip entropy source. It is also known as Intel Secure Key Technology, codenamed Bull Mountain. Intel introduced the feature around 2012, and AMD added support for the instruction in June 2015.
In computer security, virtual machine (VM) escape is the process of a program breaking out of the virtual machine on which it is running and interacting with the host operating system. In theory, a virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system", but this isn't always the case in practice.
The Intel Management Engine (ME), also known as the Intel Manageability Engine, is an autonomous subsystem that has been incorporated in virtually all of Intel's processor chipsets since 2008. It is located in the Platform Controller Hub of modern Intel motherboards.
Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is a set of instruction codes implementing trusted execution environment that are built into some Intel central processing units (CPUs). They allow user-level and operating system code to define protected private regions of memory, called enclaves. SGX is designed to be useful for implementing secure remote computation, secure web browsing, and digital rights management (DRM). Other applications include concealment of proprietary algorithms and of encryption keys.
Zen 2 is a computer processor microarchitecture by AMD. It is the successor of AMD's Zen and Zen+ microarchitectures, and is fabricated on the 7 nm MOSFET node from TSMC. The microarchitecture powers the third generation of Ryzen processors, known as Ryzen 3000 for the mainstream desktop chips, Ryzen 4000U/H and Ryzen 5000U for mobile applications, as Threadripper 3000 for high-end desktop systems, and as Ryzen 4000G for accelerated processing units (APUs). The Ryzen 3000 series CPUs were released on 7 July 2019, while the Zen 2-based Epyc server CPUs were released on 7 August 2019. An additional chip, the Ryzen 9 3950X, was released in November 2019.
Ryzen is a brand of multi-core x86-64 microprocessors, designed and marketed by AMD for desktop, mobile, server, and embedded platforms, based on the Zen microarchitecture. It consists of central processing units (CPUs) marketed for mainstream, enthusiast, server, and workstation segments, and accelerated processing units (APUs), marketed for mainstream and entry-level segments, and embedded systems applications.
Kernel page-table isolation is a Linux kernel feature that mitigates the Meltdown security vulnerability and improves kernel hardening against attempts to bypass kernel address space layout randomization (KASLR). It works by better isolating user space and kernel space memory. KPTI was merged into Linux kernel version 4.15, and backported to Linux kernels 4.14.11, 4.9.75, and 4.4.110. Windows and macOS released similar updates. KPTI does not address the related Spectre vulnerability.
Meltdown is one of the two original speculative execution CPU vulnerabilities. Meltdown affects Intel x86 microprocessors, IBM Power microprocessors, and some ARM-based microprocessors. It allows a rogue process to read all memory, even when it is not authorized to do so.
Spectre is one of the two original speculative execution CPU vulnerabilities, which involve microarchitectural side-channel attacks. These affect modern microprocessors that perform branch prediction and other forms of speculation. On most processors, the speculative execution resulting from a branch misprediction may leave observable side effects that may reveal private data to attackers. For example, if the pattern of memory accesses performed by such speculative execution depends on private data, the resulting state of the data cache constitutes a side channel through which an attacker may be able to extract information about the private data using a timing attack.
The AMD Platform Security Processor (PSP), officially known as AMD Secure Technology, is a trusted execution environment subsystem incorporated since about 2013 into AMD microprocessors. According to an AMD developer's guide, the subsystem is "responsible for creating, monitoring and maintaining the security environment" and "its functions include managing the boot process, initializing various security related mechanisms, and monitoring the system for any suspicious activity or events and implementing an appropriate response". Critics worry it can be used as a backdoor and is a security concern. AMD has denied requests to open source the code that runs on the PSP.
Speculative Store Bypass (SSB) is the name given to a hardware security vulnerability and its exploitation that takes advantage of speculative execution in a similar way to the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities. It affects the ARM, AMD and Intel families of processors. It was discovered by researchers at Microsoft Security Response Center and Google Project Zero (GPZ). After being leaked on 3 May 2018 as part of a group of eight additional Spectre-class flaws provisionally named Spectre-NG, it was first disclosed to the public as "Variant 4" on 21 May 2018, alongside a related speculative execution vulnerability designated "Variant 3a".
Lazy FPU state leak, also referred to as Lazy FP State Restore or LazyFP, is a security vulnerability affecting Intel Core CPUs. The vulnerability is caused by a combination of flaws in the speculative execution technology present within the affected CPUs and how certain operating systems handle context switching on the floating point unit (FPU). By exploiting this vulnerability, a local process can leak the content of the FPU registers that belong to another process. This vulnerability is related to the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities that were publicly disclosed in January 2018.
Foreshadow, known as L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) by Intel, is a vulnerability that affects modern microprocessors that was first discovered by two independent teams of researchers in January 2018, but was first disclosed to the public on 14 August 2018. The vulnerability is a speculative execution attack on Intel processors that may result in the disclosure of sensitive information stored in personal computers and third-party clouds. There are two versions: the first version (original/Foreshadow) targets data from SGX enclaves; and the second version (next-generation/Foreshadow-NG) targets virtual machines (VMs), hypervisors (VMM), operating systems (OS) kernel memory, and System Management Mode (SMM) memory. A listing of affected Intel hardware has been posted.
In digital computing, hardware security bugs are hardware bugs or flaws that create vulnerabilities affecting computer central processing units (CPUs), or other devices which incorporate programmable processors or logic and have direct memory access, which allow data to be read by a rogue process when such reading is not authorized. Such vulnerabilities are considered "catastrophic" by security analysts.
Spoiler is a security vulnerability on modern computer central processing units that use speculative execution. It exploits side-effects of speculative execution to improve the efficiency of Rowhammer and other related memory and cache attacks. According to reports, all modern Intel Core CPUs are vulnerable to the attack as of 2019. AMD has stated that its processors are not vulnerable.
The Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) vulnerabilities are a set of weaknesses in Intel x86 microprocessors that use hyper-threading, and leak data across protection boundaries that are architecturally supposed to be secure. The attacks exploiting the vulnerabilities have been labeled Fallout, RIDL, ZombieLoad., and ZombieLoad 2.
SWAPGS, also known as Spectre variant 1, is a computer security vulnerability that utilizes the branch prediction used in modern microprocessors. Most processors use a form of speculative execution, this feature allows the processors to make educated guesses about the instructions that will most likely need to be executed in the near future. This speculation can leave traces in the cache, which attackers use to extract data using a timing attack, similar to side-channel exploitation of Spectre.
Load value injection (LVI) is an attack on Intel microprocessors that can be used to attack Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) technology. It is a development of the previously known Meltdown security vulnerability. Unlike Meltdown, which can only read hidden data, LVI can inject data values, and is resistant to the countermeasures so far used to mitigate the Meltdown vulnerability.
Retbleed is a speculative execution attack on x86-64 and ARM processors, including some recent Intel and AMD chips. First made public in 2022, it is a variant of the Spectre vulnerability which exploits retpoline, which was a mitigation for speculative execution attacks.
Downfall, known as Gather Data Sampling (GDS) by Intel, is a computer security vulnerability found in 6th through 11th generations of consumer and 1st through 4th generations of Xeon Intel x86-64 microprocessors. It is a transient execution CPU vulnerability which relies on speculative execution of Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) instructions to reveal the content of vector registers.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Two mitigation techniques have been developed ...: indirect branch control mechanisms and a software approach called ... retpoline
To minimize performance impact, we do not currently recommend setting SSBD for OSes, VMMs ...
... processors that have the RDCL_NO
bit set to one (1) ... are not susceptible to the L1TF ...
... MFBDS is mitigated if either theRDCL_NO
orMDS_NO
bit ... are set. ... All processors affected by MSBDS, MFBDS, or MLPDS are also affected by MDSUM for the relevant buffers.
VMMs that already ... mitigate L1TF may not need further changes ... a VERW
may be needed to overwrite the store buffers ...
Intel Core Processor Family (Ice Lake)
... TAA can be mitigated by either applying the MDS software mitigations or by selectively disabling Intel TSX ...
... systems that have loaded the microcode ... are fully mitigated by default
Managed runtimes impacted by FPVI ...
For example, some JIT compilers inside web browsers ... may be impacted by SCSB
... potential BHI attacks can be mitigated by adding LFENCE to specific identified gadgets ...
For processors ... whereMD_CLEAR
may not overwrite fill buffer values, Intel has released microcode updates ... so thatVERW
does overwrite fill buffer values. ...To mitigate this, the OS, VMM, or driver that reads the secret data can reduce the window in which that data remains vulnerable ... by performing an additional read of some non-secret data