We are receiving a high-severity vulnerability finding on our GCP Virtual Machines for Processor MMIO Stale Data (likely related to Spectre/Meltdown variants, e.g., CVE-2022-21123, CVE-2022-21127,
escription: We are receiving a high-severity vulnerability finding on our GCP Virtual Machines for Processor MMIO Stale Data (likely related to Spectre/Meltdown variants, e.g., CVE-2022-21123, CVE-2022-21127,CVE-2022-21123,CVE-2022-21125, CVE-2022-21166 ). The vulnerability scanner indicates that the Linux Kernel is missing a necessary mitigation.
Affected Systems:
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GCP VMs running Linux Kernel 6.14.0-1017-gcp #18~24.04.1-Ubuntu
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GCP VMs running COS Kernel 6.12.46+ cos-125
Diagnostic Output: The /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/mmio_stale_data file reports: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT Host state unknown
Questions for GCP/Mitigation Confirmation:
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Legitimacy: Is this a legitimate, exploitable vulnerability in the GCP environment, or is the finding a false positive due to host-level mitigations managed by GCP?
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Mitigation Status: If mitigated at the hypervisor or host level, please provide a formal artifact or documentationthat explicitly confirms the mitigation is in place and negates the need for the kernel-level patch on the guest OS. This is required for our security audit.
). The vulnerability scanner indicates that the Linux Kernel is missing a necessary mitigation.
Affected Systems:
-
GCP VMs running Linux Kernel 6.14.0-1017-gcp #18~24.04.1-Ubuntu
-
GCP VMs running COS Kernel 6.12.46+ cos-125
Diagnostic Output: The /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/mmio_stale_data file reports: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT Host state unknown
Questions for GCP/Mitigation Confirmation:
-
Legitimacy: Is this a legitimate, exploitable vulnerability in the GCP environment, or is the finding a false positive due to host-level mitigations managed by GCP?
-
Mitigation Status: If mitigated at the hypervisor or host level, please provide a formal artifact or documentationthat explicitly confirms the mitigation is in place and negates the need for the kernel-level patch on the guest OS. This is required for our security audit.
