Servers and web spaces at 1AWWW are protected against the CPU bugs (Meltdown and Spectre)! For the virtualization software Proxmox 4./5.x were released yesterday the patches and from us last night around ca. 23:30 am in all hosts! Several servers of our infrastructure have also been secured! The Mode KPTI (page table isolation) was also set to “Enabled”!
What every user should know!
In the following we give recommendations, which should be observed by each user depending on the group, in order to avoid nasty surprises!
The CPU vulnerabilities are the world’s largest security meltdown!
Meanwhile, it has become known that Intel and other system developers since July 2017 is known that there are these vulnerabilities for years! Intel has completely ignored this! It was not until November, when 3 different groups were about to provide evidence, that Intel was awake and at least one of the Intel owners sold over 24 million USD shares (insider knowledge), Lt. Heise! This is probably where the prosecutor is supposed to investigate, and in the USA there have already been 3 class actions against Intel, because the patches that have been recorded and are still going to make every computer slower! The CPU is additionally charged by 5 to 30% more!
In the meantime, Twitter discusses whether it may be possible to The NSA was known and no one knows from us whether these vulnerabilities were not successfully exploited by now! There is nothing known, but theoretically cunning hackers and insider, secret data, but also password data could be grabbed! The NSA with a large troop of computer scientists would have had an easy game in any case!
Therefore, we strongly advise everyone to follow the following safety recommendations, which they should not rush, but which should nevertheless be swiftly worked out:
Server owner:
Perform all necessary updates first! Also make sure to repeat this in the future regularly! Change your root or Admin password (also for plesk servers)! For servers with root access, we recommend that you regenerate the SSH keys and allow the server to allow connections via SSH-keys! There are additional help in the Web interface for servers! Then carefully change all your passwords, for mail accounts and also all connected systems of any kind! If you have set up customer access to your systems, they must also be informed!
Website owner:
The server Software for cpanel/Plesk is always updated automatically by us! Pay attention to updates of your used scripts, e.g. CMS systems like Joomla and WordPress! Change the access data to your webspace access (Plesk/cpanel/other interfaces), change the passwords to all mail accounts and also the internal passwords for MySQL to the databases etc! Change users and Passwords of Joomla and WordPress! In the future, do not use “admin” or “root”. At Joomla make sure that the directory protection works! At WordPress running at the moment extreme attacks in WordPress break down, see blog article:
“Christmas… And the hackers are beating – always years back ”
For all other computers/mobile phones/systems:
They are all affected, including computers that control nuclear power stations and the power grid, or in telecommunications including Routers/firewalls/mail servers etc. be used! Hackers may have had the opportunity to spy on data as well as passwords and can use them against you or us all!
And in fact, all mobiles including iphone, ipad, Android devices and possibly IOT devices (refrigerators, coffee machines, washing machines, heating systems, Alexa, wrist watches) etc. Affected! The most dangerous are IT devices with Intel chips, but other processors, such as AMD, etc, are affected by the vulnerabilities! All devices must be updated and if passwords are used or only stored, they can be placed in foreign hands!
To repeat this again:
It is a global security meltdown, caused by non-reaction from chip manufacturers! It is still expected that in the area of CPUs further bugs are revealed, which represent extreme vulnerabilities! Please pay attention to your safety!