Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
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Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#2We're at a stage where to be safe on x86 we need to have multiple microcode and kernel layers to be safe.
At which point do we agree the performance increases over the last 20 years have been built on sand and move elsewhere?
Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#3If hyper-threading should be disabled for maximum security, this is good for AMD CPUs which maximize cores per socket.
2 months ago thread on OpenBSD and hyper-threading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17350278
Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#4We're at a stage where to be safe on x86 we need to have multiple microcode and kernel layers to be safe. At which point do we agree the performance increases over the last 20 years have been built on sand and move elsewhere?
Move where exactly? At this point x86 is the least of all evils that have respectable performance.
Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#5If hyper-threading should be disabled for maximum security, this is good for AMD CPUs which maximize cores per socket. 2 months ago thread on OpenBSD and hyper-threading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17350278
Or just keep using AMD CPUs, because yet again they are unaffected https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/security-updates
Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#6If hyper-threading should be disabled for maximum security, this is good for AMD CPUs which maximize cores per socket. 2 months ago thread on OpenBSD and hyper-threading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17350278
Or just keep using AMD CPUs, because yet again they are unaffected https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/security-updates
I'm seriously thinking about getting an AMD CPU for my desktop when this i7 4770k finally needs replacing.
Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#7We're at a stage where to be safe on x86 we need to have multiple microcode and kernel layers to be safe. At which point do we agree the performance increases over the last 20 years have been built on sand and move elsewhere?
I'm pretty sure this attack doesn't apply to AMD, being built on the original Meltdown attack that was Intel specific. So what'll happen is Intel will change their chips to not do prefetching without also doing a permissions check like MAD does. Meltdown solved.
Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#8We're at a stage where to be safe on x86 we need to have multiple microcode and kernel layers to be safe. At which point do we agree the performance increases over the last 20 years have been built on sand and move elsewhere?
Move where exactly? At this point x86 is the least of all evils that have respectable performance.
And this is why computing monocultures are bad, because the dominant architecture may have painted itself into a corner.
That's why alternatives like Open POWER are important.
Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#9We're at a stage where to be safe on x86 we need to have multiple microcode and kernel layers to be safe. At which point do we agree the performance increases over the last 20 years have been built on sand and move elsewhere?
It's probably time for a new architecture that isn't so convoluted with decades of optimizations and iterative improvements.
It's also time for a computer system with one and only one general purpose processor (no tiny CPUs in storage or "system management" or every other device)
Probably something like a programming language/OS/computer system written new with a CPU based on current GPU designs.
Re: Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What You Need to Know
#10If helpful a few Cloud Providers Responses:
Google Cloud
- Google Cloud's protections against this new vulnerability: - https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/protecting-agains...)
- GCE Related information: - https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/security-bulletins
- GKE Related information: - https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/security-bul...
Oracle Cloud
- https://blogs.oracle.com/oraclesecurity/intel-l1tf
Azure
- https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/virtualization/2018/08/1...