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ChevUribe
Expert
Expert

Intel CPU Vulnerability

We are currently using Dell R440 servers.

We are using vSphere 6.5 until we decided to upgrade to 6.7 update 1.

Now the hosts are giving warnings of the  CVE-2018-3646 vulnerability.

Checked the issue and was pointed to the KB VMware Knowledge Base

My questions are the following:

1. Did we did the right thing to upgrade the hosts to version 6.7 update 1?

2. Do we now have to follow to follow the steps indicated in the KB?

3. Checked the KB and found out that it is detected since 6.5. My question is why in 6.7 that we encountered the warning?

4. Do we need to re-install to something later version or go back to 6.5?

Hope someone knowledgeable with the vulnerability can answer my queries.

Thanks!

4 Replies
GayathriS
Expert
Expert

Even with 6.7 you have this issue.

You need to follow as per the KB states

I see there are few patches available on this as well :

L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) vulnerability: vSphere patches available - Nolabnoparty

Please mark this as "correct" or " Helpfull" if this answers your query .

regards

Gayathri

ChevUribe
Expert
Expert

Based from the link provided, the update for 6.7 was created last 8/14/2018.

Does the update 1 of 6.7 which is released last 10/16/2018 already includes the patch for VMware L1TF?

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vFouad
Leadership
Leadership

1. Yes

2. Follow the flow chart in VMware Knowledge Base 55806

3. This is a hardware level issue, the mitigation required mitigation on all supported versions of ESXi, if your CPU is vulnerable to this issue you will get alerted.

4. No, follow KB 55806, make sure you have sufficient capacity and then enable the new task scheduler to avoid the vulnerability, then patch all guest VMs.

mskupin
Contributor
Contributor

Note you should also upgrade BIOS to fully cover fixing this vulnerability: Microprocessor Side-Channel Vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5754): Impact on...

Please mark this as "Correct" or " Helpfull" if this answers your query. Best regards, Michal