Smeltdown 2.0: Revisiting the Spectre and Meltdown Vulnerabilities

This blog revisits the Spectre and Meltdown hardware vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-5754, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715), explains how speculative-execution side-channel attacks can leak sensitive memory, describes the recent release of working exploits and historical patching problems (performance regressions, instability, and rollback), and recommends applying updated mitigations with a risk-based approach given the low observed exploitation in the wild.