Spectre and Meltdown Vulnerability

Summary

Quantum has been made aware of multiple microarchitectural (hardware) implementation issues affecting many modern microprocessors, requiring updates to operating system software in combination with a microcode update. There are 3 known CVEs related to this issue in combination with Intel, AMD, and ARM architectures. Affected operating systems include recent versions of Linux (Red Hat, CentOS, SUSE), Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS.

An unprivileged attacker can use these flaws to bypass conventional memory security restrictions in order to gain read access to privileged system memory that would otherwise be inaccessible. In order for this exploit to be used, an attacker needs to run malicious code on the target processor. This is a local system exploit, not something that can be directly attacked over a network.

NIST has assigned CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715 and CVE-2017-5754 for these vulnerabilities.

 

Vulnerable Quantum Products

Product Impacted Version Notes
DXi All Versions Vulnerable Uses Intel processors that are impacted by Meltdown and Spectre. Both vulnerabilities require local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications which lowers the risk of an exploit. Quantum to include Operating System patches in a future release of software. DAE Feature: Customers are responsible for upgrading the OS within DAE when the appropriate upgrades are available.
Lattus All Versions Vulnerable Uses Intel processors that are impacted by Meltdown and Spectre. Both vulnerabilities require local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications which lowers the risk of an exploit. Quantum to include Operating System patches in a future release of software.
SuperLoader3 Not Vulnerable All versions are not affected. Uses a PowerPC based processor which is not affected by Meltdown. Spectre requires local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications.
Scalar i3/i6 Not Vulnerable Uses a PowerPC based processor which is not affected by Meltdown. Spectre requires local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications.
Scalar i40/ i80 Not Vulnerable Uses a PowerPC based processor which is not affected by Meltdown. Spectre requires local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications.
Scalar i500 Not Vulnerable Uses a PowerPC based processor which is not affected by Meltdown. Spectre requires local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications.
Scalar i6000/i2000 Not Vulnerable Uses a PowerPC based processor which is not affected by Meltdown. Spectre requires local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications.
iBlade All Versions Vulnerable Uses Intel processors that are impacted by Meltdown and Spectre. Both vulnerabilities require local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications which lowers the risk of an exploit. Quantum to include Operating System patches in a future release of software.
Scalar Key Manager Latest version 250Q.GC00400 SKM Appliances running latest version 250Q.GC00400 are vulnerable to Meltdown. Quantum to include Operating System patches in a future release of software. Spectre requires local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications.
Scalar LTFS Appliance and Virtual Appliance All Versions Vulnerable Uses Intel processors that are impacted by Meltdown and Spectre. Both vulnerabilities require local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications which lowers the risk of an exploit. Quantum to include Operating System patches in a future release of software.
StorNext Appliances
  • M-Series
  • Artico 1U
  • Artico 2U
  • Xcellis Workflow Director
  • Xcellis Workflow Extender
  • Pro Solutions
  • Pro Solutions with Xcellis
  • Xcellis Foundation
All Versions Vulnerable Uses Intel processors that are impacted by Meltdown and Spectre. Both vulnerabilities require local execution of an application designed to exploit the vulnerability; local users are prevented from running or generating applications which lowers the risk of an exploit. Quantum to include Operating System patches in a future release of software.
Xcellis Application Director All Versions Vulnerable All versions that use Intel processors are impacted. Patches provided by Microsoft can be applied using Windows Update when available.
StorNext Software

StorNext Linux and Windows client, or StorNext software-only configurations installed on Linux or Windows servers
Not Vulnerable Not directly vulnerable. Note: any Kernel level change in Linux and Microsoft Windows will require testing and possible, although unlikely, code changes in StorNext. Performance impact is unknown and will not be known until there is a version of the workaround from the operating system vendor for a kernel supported by StorNext.
StorNext Connect Not Vulnerable Not directly vulnerable.
StorNext NAS Not Vulnerable Not directly vulnerable.
Vision Vision Appliance Only All versions of the Vision virtual appliance use CentOS. When installed with Intel processors all versions of the virtual appliance will be impacted. Vision software is not impacted. Patches provided by the Operating System vendor will be integrated into a subsequent release of software.
QXS Hybrid Disk Not Vulnerable Not directly vulnerable. The processor domains are embedded systems, which are closed environments that do not run any external code.

 

Impact

See FAQs on sites Meltdown and Spectre
From RedHat https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0007

 

References

Additional information about this vulnerability can be found here:

Contact Information

In US, call 800-284-5101. In Europe, call toll free +800-7826-8888 or direct +49 6131 324 185. You will need your system serial number. For additional contact information, go to http://www.quantum.com/serviceandsupport/get-help/index.aspx#contact-support