How to check your Linux system for Meltodown and Spectre vulnerabilities
Meltdown and Spectre exploit critical vulnerabilities in modern processors including mobile 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. You can learn more about this vulnerability using the Meltdown and Spectre website.
Following video explains the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerability, where these threats came from and what's being done about them.
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 by Spectre ( LLVM patch, ARM speculation barrier header).
In this tutorial, I use a tool called Spectre & Meltdown vulnerability/mitigation checker by speed47. This tool doesn't attempt to run any kind of exploit, and can't guarantee that your system is secure, but rather helps you verify whether your system has the known correct mitigations in place. However, some mitigations could also exist in your kernel that this script doesn't know (yet) how to detect, or it might falsely detect mitigations that in the end don't work as expected (for example, on backported or modified kernels).
Open the Terminal and copy the Git URL and clone the repository in your file system. Alternately, you can download the repository as a Zip file to extract in a preferred location.
Change the working directory to the repository and run the spectre-meltdown-checker.sh. The script will do its best to detect mitigations, including backported non-vanilla patches, regardless of the advertised kernel version number.
I have updated my System and I was able to patch the Meltdown vulnerability.
There are some reports saying that Meltdown and Spectre Patches Have Caused Serious Performance. It is advisable to update your system even there are some problems in patches.
Following video explains the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerability, where these threats came from and what's being done about them.
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 by Spectre ( LLVM patch, ARM speculation barrier header).
In this tutorial, I use a tool called Spectre & Meltdown vulnerability/mitigation checker by speed47. This tool doesn't attempt to run any kind of exploit, and can't guarantee that your system is secure, but rather helps you verify whether your system has the known correct mitigations in place. However, some mitigations could also exist in your kernel that this script doesn't know (yet) how to detect, or it might falsely detect mitigations that in the end don't work as expected (for example, on backported or modified kernels).
Open the Terminal and copy the Git URL and clone the repository in your file system. Alternately, you can download the repository as a Zip file to extract in a preferred location.
Change the working directory to the repository and run the spectre-meltdown-checker.sh. The script will do its best to detect mitigations, including backported non-vanilla patches, regardless of the advertised kernel version number.
I have updated my System and I was able to patch the Meltdown vulnerability.
There are some reports saying that Meltdown and Spectre Patches Have Caused Serious Performance. It is advisable to update your system even there are some problems in patches.
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