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Ubuntu's MDS Mitigations Now Available for Intel Cherry Trail and Bay Trail CPUs

Users are urged to update their systems as soon as possible

May 23, 2019 16:05 GMT  ·  By
Ubuntu updates for MDS vulnerabilities
   Ubuntu updates for MDS vulnerabilities

Canonical has released an updated intel-microcode firmware for all of its supported Ubuntu Linux operating systems to mitigate the recently discovered MDS (Microarchitectural Data Sampling) security vulnerabilities in more Intel CPUs.

On May 14th, 2019, Intel published details about four new security vulnerabilities discovered by various security researchers, which are affecting several of its Intel microprocessor families. Intel released updated microcode firmware to mitigate them, and they landed on the same day for all supported Ubuntu Linux operating system series.

Now, Canonical has released an updated intel-microcode firmware that addresses these new security vulnerabilities on systems running Intel Cherry Trail and Intel Bay Trail processors. The updated intel-microcode packages are now available in the official software repositories of Ubuntu 19.04, Ubuntu 18.10, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 14.04 ESM.

"USN-3977-1 provided mitigations for Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) vulnerabilities in Intel Microcode for a large number of Intel processor families. This update provides the corresponding updated microcode mitigations for Intel Cherry Trail and Bay Trail processor families," reads the new security advisory.

How to protect your Ubuntu PC agains MDS vulnerabilities

If you are using Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo), Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish), Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), or Ubuntu 14.04 ESM (Trusty Tahr) on a computer powered by an Intel CPU, you must update the intel-microcode packages to version 3.20190514.0 as soon as possible, as well as to install the latest available Linux kernel package for your Ubuntu version.

The new intel-microcode releases are 3.20190514.0ubuntu0.19.04.3 for Ubuntu 19.04, 3.20190514.0ubuntu0.18.10.2 for Ubuntu 18.10, 3.20190514.0ubuntu0.18.04.3 for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 3.20190514.0ubuntu0.16.04.2 for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and 3.20190514.0ubuntu0.14.04.2 for Ubuntu 14.04 ESM. To update your system, follow the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.