MDS Tool: Find out if you are vulnerable to Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) attacks

MDS Tool is a free cross-platform security program for Windows and Linux devices that checks if the system hardware is vulnerable to Microarchitect Data Sampling (MDS) attacks.

On May 14, 2019, Intel disclosed a new group of security issues in its processors that it calls "microarchitectural data sampling". The flaws are related to speculative execution attacks such as Spectrum or Meltdown discovered last year. This problem affects all modern Intel processors for servers, desktops, and laptops.

Unauthorized Flight Data Loading (RIDL) and Fallout, two MDS attacks, differ from last year's attacks in several significant ways that make them potentially more powerful. The attacks do not depend on the processor cache and do not need to make assumptions about the memory structure. They leak arbitrary flight data from the internal buffers of the CPU.

The attacks, when performed, read data from other system processes and may leak sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers or other information. cookies.

Attackers that can run unprivileged code on computers with recent Intel processors – whether they use shared cloud computing resources or JavaScript on a malicious website or ad – can steal data from other programs running on the Internet. same computer, regardless of the security limits: the core operating system, other virtual machines (in the cloud, for example) or even secure enclaves (SGX). (via)

Microsoft released patches for some versions of Windows on Tuesday, but Canonical also released updates for Ubuntu.

MDS tool

MDS Tool is a complete program that you can run on your system to determine if it is vulnerable to certain attacks. You can download the program from the MSD Attacks website.

It has been recently updated to incorporate vulnerability checks for MSD attacks disclosed. Just run the program after downloading and scroll down to the Micro-Architectural Data Sampling section of the interface.

You will find out if the system on which you ran the software is vulnerable to attack or is protected.

If you have not yet installed patches to mitigate problems, it will be reported as vulnerable.

Resources

Here is a list of resources offering additional information:

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