---===[ Qubes Security Bulletin #40 ]===---

                             2018-05-24


  Information leaks due to processor speculative store bypass (XSA-263)

Summary
========

On 2018-05-21, the Xen Security Team published Xen Security Advisory
263 (CVE-2018-3639 / XSA-263) [1] with the following description:

| Contemporary high performance processors may use a technique commonly
| known as Memory Disambiguation, whereby speculative execution may
| proceed past unresolved stores.  This opens a speculative sidechannel
| in which loads from an address which have had a recent store can
| observe and operate on the older, stale, value.

Please note that this issue was neither predisclosed nor embargoed.
Consequently, the Qubes Security Team has not had time to analyze it in
advance of issuing this bulletin.

Impact
=======

According to XSA-263, the impact of this issue is as follows:

| An attacker who can locate or create a suitable code gadget in a
| different privilege context may be able to infer the content of
| arbitrary memory accessible to that other privilege context.
| 
| At the time of writing, there are no known vulnerable gadgets in the
| compiled hypervisor code.  Xen has no interfaces which allow JIT code
| to be provided.  Therefore we believe that the hypervisor itself is
| not vulnerable.  Additionally, we do not think there is a viable
| information leak by one Xen guest against another non-cooperating
| guest.
| 
| However, in most configurations, within-guest information leak is
| possible.  Mitigation for this generally depends on guest changes
| (for which you must consult your OS vendor) *and* on hypervisor
| support, provided in this advisory.

In light of this, XSA-263 appears to be less severe than the related
Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities we discussed in QSB #37 [2].

Patching
=========

The specific packages that resolve the problems discussed in this
bulletin are as follows:

  For Qubes 3.2:
  - Xen packages, version 4.6.6-41

  For Qubes 4.0:
  - Xen packages, version 4.8.3-8

The packages are to be installed in dom0 via the Qubes VM Manager or via
the qubes-dom0-update command as follows:

  For updates from the stable repository (not immediately available):
  $ sudo qubes-dom0-update

  For updates from the security-testing repository:
  $ sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-security-testing

A system restart will be required afterwards.

These packages will migrate from the security-testing repository to the
current (stable) repository over the next two weeks after being tested
by the community.

If you use Anti Evil Maid, you will need to reseal your secret
passphrase to new PCR values, as PCR18+19 will change due to the new
Xen binaries.

In addition, Intel Corporation has announced that microcode updates
will be available soon [3]:

| Variant 3a is mitigated in the same processor microcode updates as
| Variant 4, and Intel has released these updates in beta form to OEM
| system manufacturers and system software vendors. They are being
| readied for production release, and will be delivered to consumers
| and IT Professionals in the coming weeks.

This bulletin will be updated once the Intel microcode updates are
available. No microcode update is necessary for AMD processors.

Credits
========

See the original Xen Security Advisory.

References
===========

[1] https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-263.html
[2] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-secpack/blob/master/QSBs/qsb-037-2018.txt
[3] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/facts-about-side-channel-analysis-and-intel-products.html

--
The Qubes Security Team
https://www.qubes-os.org/security/