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Will Core/Snappy 16.04 and later need to be fixed for amd64 images as well, or does this just apply to desktop and server editions?

David Paul
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Meltdown Information

Desktop, Laptop, and Cloud computers may be affected by Meltdown. More technically, every Intel processor which implements out-of-order execution is potentially affected, which is effectively every processor since 1995 (except Intel Itanium and Intel Atom before 2013). google's zero project team successfully tested Meltdown on Intel processor generations released as early as 2011. Currently, he have only verified Meltdown on Intel processors. At the moment, it is unclear whether ARM and AMD processors are also affected by Meltdown.

Spectre Information

Almost every system is affected by Spectre: Desktops, Laptops, Cloud Servers, as well as Smartphones. More specifically, all modern processors capable of keeping many instructions in flight are potentially vulnerable. In particular, project team have verified Spectre on Intel, AMD, and ARM processors.

ghostmen
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  • Since kernel code is being fixed, the answer would be yes. The question is, since snaps in Core are sandboxed, they cannot access just any kernel memory, which seems to be needed by Meltdown and Spectre... how easy can an exploit be installed and executed?

    Snaps must have defined interfaces configured with other snaps and the OS, and since the snaps are reviewed before being put into a store for distribution, it would seem that code that does these exploits would have a much harder time finding their way onto an Ubuntu Core machine and be executed, than with Desktop and Server editions.

     – David Paul Jan 05 '18 at 12:53
  • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/KnowledgeBase/SpectreAndMeltdown or https://insights.ubuntu.com/2018/01/04/ubuntu-updates-for-the-meltdown-spectre-vulnerabilities/ for info – guiverc Jan 06 '18 at 01:27