4 ms·

Well, just for one: Spectre affects almost all CPUs. It affects ARM CPUs. But Meltdown only affects x86 CPUs. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_

by sounds 8y ago

Well, just for one: Spectre affects almost all CPUs. It affects ARM CPUs. But Meltdown only affects x86 CPUs. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerabili... Maybe Intel used such an old core design in their baseband that it's not affected? Nah, that'd just be too good to be true.

zamadatix 8y ago
Your source that Meltdown only afects x86 CPUs literally starts with "Meltdown is a hardware vulnerability affecting Intel x86 microprocessors, IBM POWER processors, and some ARM-based microprocessors.[1][2][3]" and that iOS needed to be patched. Also worth noting AMD x86 CPUs were not affected. Meltdown was definitely more a "how good was your implementation" question not a "are you x86" question.
agency 8y ago
Can you describe a situation where an adversary would be able to run user code on a phone's baseband processor? This is a serious question - I don't know anything about smartphones. Do apps have access to the baseband processor? As an uninformed bystander I would think not...
- atq2119 8y ago
  It might be possible to find and exploit a buffer overflow by impersonating a cell phone tower. Not exactly trivial to pull off, but certainly not a priori impossible.
acoye 8y ago
This comment is down-voted as other archs are vulnerable to Spectre/Meltdown not just x86. True. Yet, as of right now Intel as not fixed in silicon all spectre/meltdown issues. Given the R&D / QA time on a specific arch, I'd bet it is still hardware flawed if they took an of the shelf in house x86 design. Atom based maybe? So I do not feel confident for a chip that runs the broadband and moreover one that is not auditable by the end user (unlike a main CPU would be). I would be supper interested in knowing if the reverse engineering show traces of retpolines.
- monocasa 8y ago
  It looks strongly like a quark, in which case it's not vulnerable to Spectre and Meltdown. That core is fundamentally a 486 and doesn't do the kind of speculation behind these vulnerabilities.

by sounds 8y ago

zamadatix 8y ago

Your source that Meltdown only afects x86 CPUs literally starts with "Meltdown is a hardware vulnerability affecting Intel x86 microprocessors, IBM POWER processors, and some ARM-based microprocessors.[1][2][3]" and that iOS needed to be patched. Also worth noting AMD x86 CPUs were not affected. Meltdown was definitely more a "how good was your implementation" question not a "are you x86" question.

agency 8y ago

Can you describe a situation where an adversary would be able to run user code on a phone's baseband processor? This is a serious question - I don't know anything about smartphones. Do apps have access to the baseband processor? As an uninformed bystander I would think not...

atq2119 8y ago
It might be possible to find and exploit a buffer overflow by impersonating a cell phone tower. Not exactly trivial to pull off, but certainly not a priori impossible.

acoye 8y ago

This comment is down-voted as other archs are vulnerable to Spectre/Meltdown not just x86. True. Yet, as of right now Intel as not fixed in silicon all spectre/meltdown issues. Given the R&D / QA time on a specific arch, I'd bet it is still hardware flawed if they took an of the shelf in house x86 design. Atom based maybe? So I do not feel confident for a chip that runs the broadband and moreover one that is not auditable by the end user (unlike a main CPU would be). I would be supper interested in knowing if the reverse engineering show traces of retpolines.

monocasa 8y ago
It looks strongly like a quark, in which case it's not vulnerable to Spectre and Meltdown. That core is fundamentally a 486 and doesn't do the kind of speculation behind these vulnerabilities.