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Amazon Linux AMI : qemu-kvm (ALAS-2018-942) (Spectre)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 106169

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Synopsis

The remote Amazon Linux AMI host is missing a security update.

Description

An industry-wide issue was found in the way many modern microprocessor designs have implemented speculative execution of instructions (a commonly used performance optimization). There are three primary variants of the issue which differ in the way the speculative execution can be exploited. Variant CVE-2017-5715 triggers the speculative execution by utilizing branch target injection. It relies on the presence of a precisely-defined instruction sequence in the privileged code as well as the fact that memory accesses may cause allocation into the microprocessor's data cache even for speculatively executed instructions that never actually commit (retire). As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to cross the syscall and guest/host boundaries and read privileged memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks. (CVE-2017-5715)

This update provides fixes for CVE-2017-5715 for qemu-kvm. A kernel update is still required on all hosts (both virtual and physical) to fully address this CVE.

Solution

Run 'yum update qemu-kvm' to update your system.

See Also

https://alas.aws.amazon.com/ALAS-2018-942.html

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 106169

File Name: ala_ALAS-2018-942.nasl

Version: 3.10

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 1/19/2018

Updated: 4/15/2021

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.6

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Low

Base Score: 1.9

Temporal Score: 1.7

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.6

Temporal Score: 5.4

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:H/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:qemu-kvm, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:qemu-img, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:qemu-kvm-common, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:qemu-kvm-debuginfo, cpe:/o:amazon:linux, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:qemu-kvm-tools

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/AmazonLinux/release, Host/AmazonLinux/rpm-list

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 1/12/2018

Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/4/2018

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2017-5715

ALAS: 2018-942

IAVA: 2018-A-0020