On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 9:19 AM, Aham Brahmasmi <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello Misc, > > Will OpenBSD's patches for Spectre help mitigate the risk for the > processor families which are not receiving Intel's mitigation microcode > for Spectre/Spectre variant 2? > > Backdrop > Intel has issued a Microcode Revision Guidance on April 3, 2018 [1]. > As per this guidance, some processor families will not be receiving > the Spectre/Spectre variant 2 mitigation microcode updates from Intel. > The reasons for this kind act of benevolence are best known to Intel. > > The above is my understanding based on TheRegister's article[2]. As a > layman who understands little to nothing about Spectre or Meltdown, I > am wondering whether OpenBSD's mitigations would be sufficient. > > On a side note, older IBM-era ThinkPads seem to be left out by Intel. > ThinkPad Classic is/was for volks with lot of money. Lenovo wants to be > Apple. I do not have words to express myself. > > Regards, > ab > [1] - https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/ > 04/microcode-update-guidance.pdf > [2] - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/04/intel_spectre_ > microcode_updates/ > ---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-- > > Sir Brahmasmi: >From http://www.openbsd.org/63.html - What's New -- section - Security improvements: OpenBSD/arm64 now uses kernel page table isolation to mitigate Spectre variant 3 (Meltdown) attacks. OpenBSD/armv7 and OpenBSD/arm64 now flush the Branch Target Buffer (BTB) on processors that do speculative execution to mitigate Spectre variant 2 attacks. -- Boyd Stephens
