Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerability

[Justin.Abendroth]

Are PA devices effected by the meltdown and spectre vulnerability and if so, are these signatures known yet by PA?

[bvandivier]

Please note we have posted the following advisories regarding Meltdown and Spectre.

https://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2018/01/threat-brief-meltdown-spectre-vulnerabilities/

https://live.paloaltonetworks.com/t5/Customer-Advisories/Information-about-Meltdown-and-Spectre-find...

Please also note that these are vulnerabilities which require local code execution therefore coverage in the form of IPS (vulnerability protection) signatures are not germane to these particular vulnerabilities as these are not network-borne attacks.

[skannappan]

Hi,

Is the vulnerability applicable only to the hardware platform or if the Virtual firewall series are also affected?

[Ronelle]

The new 762 update sent out last night was applied to our PA500 and "broke" it.

We had lots of resources-unavailable session end reasons.

We had to revert and restart the dataplane.

Has anyone else had these issues?

-Ronelle

[ChuckKimber]

@bvandivier wrote:

Please also note that these are vulnerabilities which require local code execution therefore coverage in the form of IPS (vulnerability protection) signatures are not germane to these particular vulnerabilities as these are not network-borne attacks.

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I believe PA's response is accurate for packet level devices, but what about products like an On-Premise Wildfire sandbox.  I assume Wildfire is some form of a hypervisor product that is intentionally executing files on intentionally flawed OSes.  Is this not "local code execution"?  Are there any specific statements for the Wildfire product?

[bvandivier]

Any specific statements regarding Wildfire or other products as they relate to meltdown/spectre will be shared in future updates to the official advisory.

https://live.paloaltonetworks.com/t5/Customer-Advisories/Information-about-Meltdown-and-Spectre-find...

https://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2018/01/threat-brief-meltdown-spectre-vulnerabilities/

[justamoment]

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@Ronelle wrote:

The new 762 update sent out last night was applied to our PA500 and "broke" it.

We had lots of resources-unavailable session end reasons.

We had to revert and restart the dataplane.

Has anyone else had these issues?

-Ronelle

---

We have 5 with no issues (well 4 - 1 is an A/P pair).

[LawrenceLiang]

Singature just released: "Name: Multiple CPUs Side-Channel Information Disclosure Vulnerability, Unique Threat ID: 30276"

[Scott_Holland]

Is there a test site where we can see what the endpoints will look like when the palo triggers a drop?

[chyates]

default action = alert.  surprising.