> Both vulnerabilities exploit performance features (caching and speculative execution) common to many modern processors to leak data via a so-called side-channel attack. Happily, the Raspberry Pi isn’t susceptible to these vulnerabilities, because of the particular ARM cores that we use.
The reason why Spectre is not a problem is because there is no branch predictor in these simpler arm cores. Instructions are processed in parallel when possible, but not before dependencies, including branch decisions.
EDIT: under "What is speculation?" branch prediction is described. Then in the conclusion: "The lack of speculation in the ARM1176, Cortex-A7, and Cortex-A53 cores used in Raspberry Pi render us immune to attacks of the sort."
> Both vulnerabilities exploit performance features (caching and speculative execution) common to many modern processors to leak data via a so-called side-channel attack. Happily, the Raspberry Pi isn’t susceptible to these vulnerabilities, because of the particular ARM cores that we use.
The reason why Spectre is not a problem is because there is no branch predictor in these simpler arm cores. Instructions are processed in parallel when possible, but not before dependencies, including branch decisions.
EDIT: under "What is speculation?" branch prediction is described. Then in the conclusion: "The lack of speculation in the ARM1176, Cortex-A7, and Cortex-A53 cores used in Raspberry Pi render us immune to attacks of the sort."