Meltdown and Spectre patches

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SuperSapien
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Meltdown and Spectre patches

Post by SuperSapien »

Hi I'm running Linux Mint KDE 17.2 on my desktop and LM Cinnamon 18.2 on my laptop and I have kernel 3.13.0-139 on LM 17.2 and kernel 4.4.0-109 on LM 18.2. And I was wondering if these kernels completely patch the Meltdown exploit and are there any newer kernels that I should be using to patch Spectre? :?:
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karlchen
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Re: Meltdown and Spectre patches

Post by karlchen »

Hello, SuperSapien.

No new kernel (software), amended to reduce the risks caused by the CPU flaws that Intel and AMD implemented into their CPUs (hardware), will ever fully close the gaps which others opened. :(
Provided we users are lucky, a combination of updated intel-microcode / amd-microcode plus patched kernels will on fine day protect us more or less completely from the hardware flaws, known as Spectre 1, Spectre 2 and Meltdown, and from the various attack vectors which those flaws created.

Apart from this, the latest kernel releases are at the time of writing this reply:
+ K3.13.0-141 (for the K3.13.0-xx series)
+ K4.4.0-112 (for the K4.4.0-xx series)

Although upgrading to these latest kernel releases alone will not give full protection against Spectre & Meltdown, they have been installed here on Mint 17.x and 18.x as appropriate. Better a partial fix, than no fix at all. :wink:

Please, see also xenopeek's post on How to update your kernel for Meltdown and Spectre

Regards,
Karl
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SuperSapien
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Re: Meltdown and Spectre patches

Post by SuperSapien »

karlchen wrote: Sun Feb 11, 2018 7:03 pm Hello, SuperSapien.

No new kernel (software), amended to reduce the risks caused by the CPU flaws that Intel and AMD implemented into their CPUs (hardware), will ever fully close the gaps which others opened. :(
Provided we users are lucky, a combination of updated intel-microcode / amd-microcode plus patched kernels will on fine day protect us more or less completely from the hardware flaws, known as Spectre 1, Spectre 2 and Meltdown, and from the various attack vectors which those flaws created.

Apart from this, the latest kernel releases are at the time of writing this reply:
+ K3.13.0-141 (for the K3.13.0-xx series)
+ K4.4.0-112 (for the K4.4.0-xx series)

Although upgrading to these latest kernel releases alone will not give full protection against Spectre & Meltdown, they have been installed here on Mint 17.x and 18.x as appropriate. Better a partial fix, than no fix at all. :wink:

Please, see also xenopeek's post on How to update your kernel for Meltdown and Spectre

Regards,
Karl
So are the kernel patches that I currently have installed are sufficient or not? I understand that the kernel patches wont completely fix the exploits, but are the kernels I have installed are they good enough?
Also I use NoScript and Firejail.
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