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Posted on 04 October 2023
FreeBSD security notificat=============================================================================FreeBSD-SA-23:14.smccc Security Advisory
The FreeBSD Project
Topic: arm64 boot CPUs may lack speculative execution protections
Category: core
Module: arm64
Announced: 2023-10-03
Affects: FreeBSD 13.2
Corrected: 2023-09-25 12:13:47 UTC (stable/13, 13.2-STABLE)
2023-10-03 21:29:11 UTC (releng/13.2, 13.2-RELEASE-p4)
CVE Name: CVE-2023-5370
For general information regarding FreeBSD Security Advisories,
including descriptions of the fields above, security branches, and the
following sections, please visit <URL:https://security.FreeBSD.org/>.
I. Background
To mitigate speculative execution side channel attacks on some AArch64
hardware the kernel can call into the boot firmware using the Secure Monitor
Call Calling Convention (SMCCC) mechanism.
To decide if the kernel needs to use the SMCCC mitigation on a given CPU it
can query the firmware if the SMCCC workaround is present.
II. Problem Description
On CPU 0 the check for the SMCCC workaround is called before SMCCC support
has been initialized.
III. Impact
No speculative execution workarounds are installed on CPU 0.
IV. Workaround
No workaround is available. Not all AArch64 CPUs are affected.
Systems where CPU 0 has the CSV2 and PSTATE.SSBS processor
features are unaffected by the speculative execution attacks.
The kernel will print the following under CPU 0 on unaffected
CPUs:
Processor Features 0 = <...CVS2...>
Processor Features 1 = <...PSTATE.SSBS...>
The Arm Cortex-A35, Cortex-A53, and Cortex-A55 CPUs are
unaffected.
V. Solution
Upgrade your vulnerable system to a supported FreeBSD stable or
release / security branch (releng) dated after the correction date
and reboot.
Perform one of the following:
1) To update your vulnerable system via a binary patch:
Systems running a RELEASE version of FreeBSD on the amd64, i386, or
(on FreeBSD 13 and later) arm64 platforms can be updated via the
freebsd-update(8) utility:
# freebsd-update fetch
# freebsd-update install
# shutdown -r +10min "Rebooting for a security update"
2) To update your vulnerable system via a source code patch:
The following patches have been verified to apply to the applicable
FreeBSD release branches.
a) Download the relevant patch from the location below, and verify the
detached PGP signature using your PGP utility.
# fetch https://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-23:14/smccc.patch
# fetch https://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-23:14/smccc.patch.asc
# gpg --verify smccc.patch.asc
b) Apply the patch. Execute the following commands as root:
# cd /usr/src
# patch < /path/to/patch
c) Recompile your kernel as described in
<URL:https://www.FreeBSD.org/handbook/kernelconfig.html> and reboot the
system.
VI. Correction details
This issue is corrected by the corresponding Git commit hash or Subversion
revision number in the following stable and release branches:
Branch/path Hash Revision
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
stable/13/ 4df1447f2c76 stable/13-n256420
releng/13.2/ 485912e051bb releng/13.2-n254637
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Run the following command to see which files were modified by a
particular commit:
# git show --stat <commit hash>
Or visit the following URL, replacing NNNNNN with the hash:
<URL:https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=NNNNNN>
To determine the commit count in a working tree (for comparison against
nNNNNNN in the table above), run:
# git rev-list --count --first-parent HEAD
VII. References
<URL:https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2023-5370>
The latest revision of this advisory is available at
<URL:https://security.FreeBSD.org/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-23:14.smccc.asc>
