Bulletin Summary
NVIDIA is providing an initial security update to mitigate aspects of Google Project Zero's January 3, 2018, publication of novel information disclosure attacks that combine CPU speculative execution with known side channels.
NVIDIA believes SHIELD Tablet GPU hardware is immune to the reported security issue. SHIELD Tablet integrates an Arm (CPU) processor that may, in certain circumstances, benefit from software mitigations to reduce the risk of the exploits identified in the Google Project Zero disclosure. For more information, refer to the Arm Security Update.
This bulletin addresses NVIDIA software updates for SHIELD Tablet to mitigate aspects of the potential Arm CPU vulnerabilities.
These potential vulnerabilities have three known variants:
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Variant 1 (CVE-2017-5753): Software mitigations for the Arm CPU issue are provided with the security update included in this bulletin. NVIDIA expects to work together with its ecosystem partners as future updates are released to further strengthen mitigations for the potentially affected CPU.
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Variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715): Software mitigations for the Arm CPU issue are provided with the security update included in this bulletin. NVIDIA expects to work together with its ecosystem partners as future updates are released to further strengthen mitigations for the potentially affected CPU.
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Variant 3 (CVE-2017-5754): NVIDIA believes that SHIELD Tablet is not vulnerable to this variant.
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Variant 3a (CVE-2017-5754): Based on Arm's Security Update, NVIDIA believes that SHIELD Tablet does not need software mitigations for this variant.
For updates and additional information, actively monitor the NVIDIA Product Security page.
Vulnerability Details
The following sections summarize the potential vulnerabilities. Descriptions are as published on MITRE and risk assessments follow CVSS.
CVE-2017-5753
Computer systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution and branch prediction may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to unauthorized code with local user access via a side-channel analysis.
CVSS Base Score: 8.2 CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N
CVE-2017-5715
Computer systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution and indirect branch prediction may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to unauthorized code with local user access via a side-channel analysis.
CVSS Base Score: 8.2 CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N
CVE-2017-5754
Computer systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to unauthorized code with local user access via a side-channel analysis of the data cache.
CVSS Base Score: 7.9 CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N
NVIDIA's risk assessment is based on an average of risk across a diverse set of installed systems and may not represent the true risk of your local installation. NVIDIA recommends consulting a security or IT professional to evaluate the risk of your specific configuration. NVIDIA doesn't know of any exploits to these issues at this time.
Updated Products
| Product | Integrated CPU | OS |
|---|---|---|
| SHIELD Tablet Software | Arm Cortex-A15 processor | Android |
Security Updates
Updates for SHIELD are available from Settings > About > System update.
| Product | Updated Version |
|---|---|
| SHIELD Tablet | SHIELD Experience 5.4 |
Note: If you are using earlier driver branches of the affected products, upgrade to one of the updated supported versions listed.
Acknowledgements
None.
Get the Most Up to Date Product Security Information
To learn more about the vulnerability management process followed by the NVIDIA Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT), see the current list of NVIDIA security bulletins, or subscribe to security bulletin notifications, go to NVIDIA Product Security.
Revision History
| Revision | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 5.0 | March 22, 2018 | Revised the availability of the updated version |
| 4.0 | March 1, 2018 | Revised the expected availability of the updated version |
| 3.0 | January 31, 2018 | Revised the expected availability of the updated version |
| 2.0 | January 16, 2018 | Clarified affected Arm CPU components |
| 1.0 | January 4, 2018 | Initial release |
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