Hi there, just wondering what this message in my dmesg log means. i feel concerned for my privacy.
any help to understand this would greatly be appreciated
Searching the Internet turns up all kind of useful documents, this one tries to explain it using an everyday coffee shop analogy.
What is important to note is that these CPU vulnerabilities make it possible for one process at a computer to alter/look at data of another process. That is a problem for computers that are shared between multiple users like in cloud computing platforms.
You are likely the only users on your computer, so nothing to be afraid of.
Yes,
This is a variant of the widely publicized Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities.
Using methods to exploite Meltdown and Spectre, they found that it might be possible to compromise something else.
Not particularly surprising.
But it should be recognized that unless exploit code is publicized, it’s fairly unlikely for the vulnerability to be exploited in the near future… It takes probably a higher than usually found skillset to create something that might work. It’s probably also likely that first victims will be targeted attacks of juicy targets, very unlikely that the average, common User will be hit.
In the meantime,
Patches are being rolled out that can hopefully head off even early exploit code.
If you’re truly concerned and handle very, very sensitive data, then you should probably just purchase a new machine manufactured within the past year with a CPU not vulnerable to these side=channel attacks.
TSU