Linux Mint Response to Meltdown and Specter Vulnerability

Linux Mint development team today released a statement on the recently discovered Meltdown and Specter security vulnerabilities that tell users how to secure their PCs.

As we all know, almost all well-known operating systems and all Web browsers are affected. Linux Mint, one of the most popular GNU / Linux distributions, has millions of users, but it has no fixes for Meltdown and Specter’s vulnerabilities as it relies on updates to the Ubuntu operating system.

Clement Lefebvre said these vulnerabilities could potentially lead to the disclosure of your important personal information, so consider using two-factor authentication to securely access your important data, especially for emails and the like.

The Linux Mint development team said they will release a patch soon to mitigate the effects of the Meltdown and Specter vulnerabilities in the Linux Mint 18.x and Linux Mint 17.x series. In the meantime, they urged users to update the Mozilla Firefox browser to version 57.0.4 and update NVIDIA’s proprietary graphics driver to 384.111.

They also provided instructions for the use of Google Chrome, Chromium, and Opera browsers and advised users to install the upcoming QEMU and CPU microcode updates as soon as possible.

For LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) users, they have received kernel patches for Meltdown and Specter vulnerabilities. All LMDE users need to install the Linux 3.16.51-3 + deb8u1 kernel and reboot the system.

Finally, Linux Mint developers advise users to stay focused on kernel update notifications in Linux Mint 17.x and Linux Mint 18.x for timely fixes.

Source: linuxmint