This past week, the technology world became aware of three significant security threats that could be used to allow cybercriminals to steal valuable data from an affected computer system. Together, these three bugs are commonly known as “Spectre” and “Meltdown” - a technical discussion of these vulnerabilities can be found here, and a non-technical explanation of the key facts is here.
These threats impact computing systems of all types, including the servers used to deliver OpenShift Online and OpenShift Dedicated.

As a company, Red Hat has been working very closely with the teams of security researchers and vendors that have identified these threats, as well as the software communities that have created patches required to mitigate the vulnerabilities. The purpose of this post is to notify our customers and the community of the actions Red Hat has taken to patch and protect OpenShift Online services.

Timeline:

  • On Wednesday, January 3rd at around 22:00 (UTC) Google Project Zero publicly announcing the details of the bugs.
  • Starting at around 23:00 (UTC) remediation began on internal staging clusters, and proceeded to the first Starter cluster at 00:30 (UTC) the next morning.
  • Remediation on the remaining Starter and Pro clusters began at around 04:00 (UTC), finishing at 13:30, after which further verification and validation was performed.
  • Remediation on all Dedicated clusters began, and proceeded to completion based on the preferred maintenance time-zones for each customer.

Current Status: All OpenShift v3 Online and Dedicated systems have been patched and updated.

  • All patches used within OpenShift for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and OpenShift were identical to the patches that are supplied to Red Hat customers for software that is self-managed.
  • All patches were tested within the OpenShift staging systems for validation prior to being updated on any production OpenShift systems.

All patches were deployed to the OpenShift production systems using the same automation tooling and process that is used for normal operations and maintenance.

Any questions about the vulnerabilities or patches should be directed to Red Hat Support.

At Red Hat, the safety and security of our customers’ software and data is of utmost importance. Red Hat’s deep expertise and experience in maintaining and patching Linux-based systems, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is a standard part of any Red Hat subscription. Thank you for your continued trust and confidence in working with Red Hat software, and we look forward to continuing to provide robust services to help you support your businesses in the future.