Security Bulletin: IBM Netezza Host Management is affected by the vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown.

Summary

IBM Netezza Host Management is affected by the vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown, which can enable CPU data cache timing to be abused to bypass conventional memory security restrictions to gain access to privileged memory that should be inaccessible.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2017-5753**
DESCRIPTION:** Intel Haswell Xeon, AMD PRO and ARM Cortex A57 CPUs could allow a local authenticated attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by a bounds check bypass in the CPU speculative branch instruction execution feature. By conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cross the syscall boundary and read data from the CPU virtual memory.
CVSS Base Score: 7.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/137052 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N)

CVEID: CVE-2017-5754**
DESCRIPTION:** Intel Haswell Xeon, AMD PRO and ARM Cortex A57 CPUs could allow a local authenticated attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by a rogue data cache load in the CPU speculative branch instruction execution feature. By conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause the CPU to read kernel memory from userspace before the permission check for accessing an address is performed.
CVSS Base Score: 5.6
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/137053 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N)

Affected Products and Versions

• IBM Netezza Host Management 5.4.9.0 - 5.4.17.0

Remediation/Fixes

To resolve the reported CVEs CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5754 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on following platforms :

PureData System for Analytics N1001
IBM Netezza High Capacity Appliance C1000
IBM Netezza 1000
IBM Netezza 100

Update to the following IBM Netezza Host Management release :

And for platforms PureData System for Analytics N200x and PureData System for Analytics N3001, update to the following IBM Netezza Host Management release :

Customers who have enrolled for the IBM Netezza PDA OS Security upgrade program can avail the fixes detailed above through following monthly upgrade patch:

The Netezza Host Management software contains the latest RHEL updates for the operating systems certified for use on IBM Netezza/PureData System for Analytics appliances. IBM recommends upgrading to the latest Netezza Host Management version to ensure that your hosts have the latest fixes, security changes, and operating system updates. IBM Support can assist you with planning for the Netezza Host Management and operating system upgrades to your appliances.

For more details on IBM Netezza Host Management security patching:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Security Patching for IBM PureData System for Analytics appliances

This information does NOT apply to IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA). Information for IBM Z clients including IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA) can be found at the IBM Z Portal
(https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/capabilities/system-integrity) and will not be published otherwise, in a blog, technote or document.