Stuffing the return stack buffer [LWN.net]

Stuffing the return stack buffer

Posted Jul 22, 2022 22:11 UTC (Fri) by developer122 (guest, #152928)
Parent article: Stuffing the return stack buffer

That T430 thinkpad is feeling like a really great investment right about now.

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Stuffing the return stack buffer

Posted Jul 23, 2022 13:23 UTC (Sat) by mss (subscriber, #138799) [Link] (4 responses)

Current CPUs are far faster than an Ivy Bridge CPU from a decade ago, even when the necessary mitigations for speculative execution vulnerabilities are enabled.

And these mitigations can always be disabled if not applicable to one's threat model.

Stuffing the return stack buffer

Posted Jul 23, 2022 21:42 UTC (Sat) by kenmoffat (guest, #4807) [Link] (3 responses)

My understanding is that on intel (AMD retbleed is a different vulnerability), anything before Skylake is not affected. Certainly, my haswell claims to be not vulnerable. And recent intel (gen 10 and later) are apparently also ok, so this seems to be only for generations 6 to 9.

Stuffing the return stack buffer

Posted Jul 24, 2022 11:45 UTC (Sun) by kenmoffat (guest, #4807) [Link] (2 responses)

I've been told that Ice Lake and later, except Alder Lake are vulnerable, and that the mitigation will also run on Alder Lake until new firmware is applied. See INTEL-SA-00702

Stuffing the return stack buffer

Posted Jul 24, 2022 14:13 UTC (Sun) by mss (subscriber, #138799) [Link] (1 responses)

The Intel affected CPU model page says that Ice Lake models are not affected by INTEL-SA-00702.

eIBRS parts had their own vulnerability in March (the relevant paper is here), which apparently can also be used to mount Retbleed-style attacks.

Stuffing the return stack buffer

Posted Jul 24, 2022 20:24 UTC (Sun) by kenmoffat (guest, #4807) [Link]

So yes, not exactly the same vulnerability, but the same mitigation.