Linux 5.12 To Allow Disabling Intel Graphics Security Mitigations

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 5.12 To Allow Disabling Intel Graphics Security Mitigations

The Linux 5.12 kernel will allow optional, run-time disabling of Intel graphics driver security mitigations, which so far is just in regards to last year's iGPU Leak vulnerability. This i915.mitigations= module parameter control is being added as part of finally fixing the Haswell GT1 graphics support that was fallout from this mitigaion...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-512-i915-Mitigations-Knob

[Guest]

Read the article pretty quickly, but would there be any benefit to disabling mitigations, outside of performance? The boot issues on Haswell will be fixed with 5.12 and thus not a reason to disable the mitigations?

[piorunz]

I think all these efforts to disable security mitigations, clear Linux, are bad trend. Something, somewhere is going to slip under the radar and we will hear about security vulnerabilities of already fixed bugs, but mitigations were disabled so we are at it again. Intel need to own up to their bugs and move forward.