Using latest Intel® Compilers to Mitigate Speculative Execution Side-Channel Issues

[Devorah_H_Intel]

The Intel Parallel Studio XE 2018 (IPSXE2018) Update 2 has been released together with the Intel compiler 18.0.2. This version of Intel compiler provides the fix for Spectre variant 2. Please refer to this article for more information -  https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/using-intel-compilers-to-mitigate-speculative-execution-side-channel-issues.

We will keep you posted when any additional fixes will be available.

[jimdempseyatthecove]

I do not see why Specter and Meltdown exploits are solely the fault of the CPU design. I suspect that these exploits on Intel64 systems could be mitigated by placing the "protected" information within a page, who's page table entry has the Page-level cache disable (PCD) flag set. This then becomes an O/S software related issue that would have minimal overhead impact.

Jim Dempsey