Security Bulletin: IBM QRadar SIEM is vulnerable to 3RD PARTY CPU hardware utilizing speculative execution cache timing side-channel analysis known as Variant 4 or SpectreNG (CVE-2018-3639, CVE-2018-3640)

Summary

Speculative execution is a technique used by many modern processors to improve performance by predicting which instructions may be executed based on past execution history. An attacker with local user access may be able to utilize sequences of speculative execution to perform a cache timing side-channel analysis.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2018-3639
**Description:**Multiple Intel CPU’s could allow a local attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by utilizing sequences of speculative execution and speculative execution of memory reads before the addresses of all prior memory writes are known. By conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to bypass security restrictions and gain read access to privileged memory. Note: This vulnerability is the Speculative Store Bypass (SSB), also known as Variant 4 or “SpectreNG”.
**CVSS Base Score:**4.3
**CVSS Temporal Score:**For the current score, see: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/143569
**CVSS Environmental Score:***Undefined
**CVSS Vector:**CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N

CVEID: CVE-2018-3640
**Description:**Multiple Intel CPU’s could allow a local attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by utilizing sequences of speculative execution that perform speculative reads of system registers. By conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to determine the values stored in system registers. Note: This vulnerability is the Rogue System Register Read (RSRE), also known as Variant 3a.
**CVSS Base Score:**4.3
CVSS Temporal Score: For the current score, see: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/143570 **CVSS Environmental Score: ***Undefined **CVSS Vector: **CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N

Affected Products and Versions

• IBM QRadar SIEM 7.2.0 to 7.2.8 Patch 14
• IBM QRadar SIEM 7.3.0 to 7.3.1 Patch 6

Remediation/Fixes

• QRadar / QRM / QVM / QRIF / QNI 7.2.8 Patch 15
• QRadar / QRM / QVM / QRIF / QNI 7.3.1 Patch 7

Workarounds and Mitigations

Please note in order to mitigate CVE-2018-3639 and CVE-2018-3640 microcode will need to be updated on all appliances along with the Kernel update that is included in the QRadar Patch. Please see the links below for available microcode updates.

For Lenovo Appliance M5 Firmware installs using ISO/IMM, see:

Lenovo x3550 M5 and Lenovo x3650 M5

For Lenovo M4 Appliance Firmware installs using USB keys, see:

• 1U USB: Qradar_1U_M4_MT7914_Qflow_15xxEC_2100_Firmware_Update_5.2.0
• 2U USB: Qradar_2U_M4_MT5466_xx05_xx28_QIF_PCAP_Firmware_Update_5.2.0

For Lenovo M4 Appliance Firmware installs using ISO/IMM, see:

• 1U ISO: Qradar_ISO_1U_M4_MT7914_Qflow_15xxEC_2100_Firmware_Update_5.2.0
• 2U ISO: Qradar_ISO_2U_M4_MT5466_xx05_xx28_QIF_PCAP_Firmware_Update_5.2.0

For Lenovo Appliance M3 Firmware installs using USB keys, see:

• QRADAR-FIRMWARE-1U-M3-2100-1501-QFLOW-2.2
• QRADAR-FIRMWARE-2U-M3-xx05-xx24-2.2

For Dell Appliances please get the latest BIOS for your server from <https://support.dell.com> .