The Cortex-X processor from ARM has not escaped any exposure after Google security researchers exposed the CPU design flaws that affect the entire chip industry. According to the chart released by the ARM, the entire A-Series of the company is susceptible to Specter; as for Meltdown, only the A75 chip is affected.
While the A15, A57, and A72 chips are likely to be affected by the Meltdown variant, ARM claims: “Often, software porting for this issue is not necessary.”
Image: neowin
In particular, the company notes that not all of the ARM chips are affected except those already listed.
- Only affected cores are listed, all other Arm cores are NOT affected.
- No indicates not affected by the particular variant.
- Yes indicates affected by the particular variant but has a mitigation (unless otherwise stated).
| Processor |
Variant 1 |
Variant 2 |
Variant 3 |
Variant 3a |
| Cortex-R7 |
Yes* |
Yes* |
No |
No |
| Cortex-R8 |
Yes* |
Yes* |
No |
No |
| Cortex-A8 |
Yes (under review) |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Cortex-A9 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Cortex-A15 |
Yes (under review) |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
| Cortex-A17 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Cortex-A57 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
| Cortex-A72 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
| Cortex-A73 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Cortex-A75 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
As many said, these vulnerabilities have been known by developers for months, but hardware and software manufacturers have been secretly developing patches to avoid hacking before this community. However, the premature exposure of the media forces companies to speed up the restoration process and explain the timetable to the public.
The earliest bug found in the Google Project Zero team already has a full report, and ARM has released its own version (Cache Speculation Side-channels whitepaper).
AMR expects all developers to read the report in depth to understand how vulnerabilities work and how best to mitigate them. As for the future development, the company said it will also be ready:
All future ARM Cortex processors will be able to withstand this type of attack and fix vulnerabilities with kernel patches.
Our company hopes that the software mitigation plan mentioned in the white paper will be strictly deployed to protect users from malicious programs.
ARM’s professional security response team works closely with partners and customers to investigate any potential mitigations.
In addition, Intel responded to the impact of these vulnerabilities on their own processors and even forced AMD and ARM launch said the latter also faced the same problem.
In this regard, AMD quickly hitting the face, said the company’s full line of processors designed to Meltdown immune, and specter vulnerabilities also have minimal impact.
