Intel Releases New CPU Microcode Due To New Security Vulnerabilities (June 2021)

Intel just issued a big set of CPU microcode updates for addressing a new set of security advisories just made public.

Going public today are a set of three new processor vulnerabilities:

Intel SA-00442 - With a CVSS Base Score of 8.8 "High" is a new VT-d advisory where a vulnerability with Intel Virtualization Technology for Direct I/O could lead to a privilege escalation. This is due to an incomplete cleanup whereby authenticated users with local access could exploit to enable higher privileges.

Intel SA-00464 - A set of multiple security vulnerabilities that could lead to information disclosure. The issues stem from improper isolation of shared resources to observable timing discrepancies that could lead to information disclosure. These issues were found by external researchers.

Intel SA-00465 - Intel Atom processors are vulnerable to information disclosure via a domain-bypass transient execution vulnerability.

Thus out now is a big batch of CPU microcode updates for Linux users with microcode-20210608. Onward to benchmarking the CPU microcode updates to see if there are any performance changes as a result.

So far no Intel security blog posts if there are any other security advisories this second Tuesday of the month outside of these three requiring the microcode updates.