KLA11030 Speculative Store Bypass and Rogue System Register Read vulnerabilities in Microsoft Surface Products

On January 3, 2018, Microsoft released advisories and security updates related to a recently discovered class of hardware vulnerabilities (known as Spectre and Meltdown) that affect AMD, ARM, and Intel CPUs.

On May 21, 2018, Intel announced the Rogue System Registry Read vulnerability. Also a new subclass of speculative execution side channel vulnerabilities known as Speculative Store Bypass (SSB) has been announced.

Malicious users can exploit these vulnerabilities to bypass security restrictions and obtain sensitive information.

Below is a complete list of vulnerabilities:

1. Speculative store bypass vulnerability in Microsoft Windows systems can be exploited to bypass security restrictions;
2. Rogue System Registry Read vulnerability in Microsoft Surface Hardware can be exploited to obtain sensitive information.

Technical details

By exploiting vulnerability (1) attacker could then bypass Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization (KASLR) protections. An attacker would have to log on to an affected system. The mitigation for this vulnerability is exclusively through a microcode/firmware update, and there is no additional Microsoft Windows operating system update.

Vulnerability (2) can be exploited via vulnerable code patterns in the operating system (OS) or in applications. In the case of Just-in-Time (JIT) compilers, such as JavaScript JIT employed by web browsers, it may be possible for an attacker to supply JavaScript that produces native code that could give rise to an instance of CVE-2018-3639. However, major browsers have taken steps to increase the difficulty of exploting.

Original advisories

Related products

Microsoft-Surface

CVE list

KB list

Solution

Look at Recommended Actions section in original advisories

Affected Products

• Surface Pro with Advanced LTE Model 1807Microsoft Surface BookMicrosoft Surface Book 2Microsoft Surface LabtopMicrosoft Surface Pro 3Microsoft Surface Pro 4Microsoft Surface StudioSurface Pro Model 1796