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info:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/
https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme

My computer has an intel CPU but is pretty old, from 2007, maybe earlier, so I am holding out hope that it might not be affected by this, but how do I find out? I've got a few computers I want to check.

I've got system profiler and benchmark which tells me some things about my CPU but what am I looking for? What would indicate that my CPU has the hardware responsible for this memory leak?

Running: Ubuntu 16.04.3

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    Your two links does not reference the same issue. The second one is about Intel ME, which is a problem of its own, but unrelated to the recent kernel leaks. Jan 3, 2018 at 14:55
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    See here. you can check with cat /proc/cpuinfo, if it reports cpu_insecure under "bugs", you're affected. Note that you need to be running a patched kernel for it to tell you (and to have the fix). Jan 3, 2018 at 14:56
  • ran cat /proc/cpuinfo bugs: (nothing) there is a blank space after bugs, hope this is a good sign :)
    – Joe
    Jan 3, 2018 at 15:39
  • i thought the two were the same thing really? intel ME being the door through which the memory leaks accessed? school me bro
    – Joe
    Jan 3, 2018 at 15:41
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    No, the blank space after bugs does not mean anything unless you have the very latest kernel / patched kernel - which will take a while to arrive in Ubuntu. And at the moment, it seems that all Intel CPUs are affected. Jan 3, 2018 at 15:48

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The flaw appears to affect all 64-bit Intel CPUs. From the article:

the flaw is in the Intel x86-64 hardware

You can use

lscpu | awk 'NR==1 || NR==10 {print $NF;}'

or with grep as mentioned in the comments by Patrick Mezkev:

lscpu | grep -E "(Architecture|Vendor ID)"

to determine if your CPU is 64-bit (x86_64) and manufactured by Intel (GenuineIntel). If both of these are returned from that command, your CPU is affected.

Additionally, as mentioned by JonasCz, if you're running a patched kernel, you can check /proc/cpuinfo for cpu_insecure:

grep cpu_insecure /proc/cpuinfo

This is (as of the time of writing this post) quite worthless due to the following:

  1. No patched kernel has arrived to Ubuntu.
  2. All x86 CPUs are being marked as "vulnerable".
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    Or: lscpu | grep -E "ˆ(Architecture|Vendor ID)" Jan 3, 2018 at 14:57
  • grep cpu_insecure /proc/cpuinfo doesn't seem to do anything
    – Joe
    Jan 3, 2018 at 15:44
  • @Joe Hence the reason I prefaced it with "running a patched kernel", and you are almost certainly not given that no patches have arrived to Ubuntu yet. If you are not, it won't show up, regardless of whether you're affected by it or not.
    – nixpower
    Jan 3, 2018 at 15:49

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