Intel SPI Flash Flaw Lets Attackers Alter or Delete BIOS/UEFI Firmware (bleepingcomputer.com) 46
Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: Intel has addressed a vulnerability in the configuration of several CPU series that allow an attacker to alter the behavior of the chip's SPI Flash memory -- a mandatory component used during the boot-up process [1, 2, 3]. According to Lenovo, who recently deployed the Intel fixes, "the configuration of the system firmware device (SPI flash) could allow an attacker to block BIOS/UEFI updates, or to selectively erase or corrupt portions of the firmware." Lenovo engineers say "this would most likely result in a visible malfunction, but could in rare circumstances result in arbitrary code execution."
Not another.. (Score:2)
Re:Not another.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Industry-wide patching it is. And now that security researchers are finally looking at hardware again, expect more of these. For one thing is sure: Intel has been doing an exceptionally bad job the last decade or so, possibly because they believed to have won the game.
Re: Not another.. (Score:2)
Don't worry, most of the industry won't bother with patching...
Hey, why am I getting 3 popups blocked on this page?
Where? (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, where's the slick marketing name for the vulnerability? Where's the logo? The website?
Re: (Score:1)
SPI vs Spy, obviously. Logo also becomes obvious.
Re: (Score:2)
Had I not commented already +1 Insightful O.o
Re: (Score:1)
You seem to be unaware that modern computers do not have a BIOS anymore and that it gets emulated by UEFI.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It doesn't affect BIOS, just UEFI.
It affects the SPI flash which could be used against either BIOS or UEFI
Applied the Fix (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
It is always hairy when you apply a firmware fix but I am pleased to say that Lenovo's update for the ThinkCentre M70 works just fine. Although, it took a while to apply and power cycled 3 times. At one point I almost said, "Fuck! It bricked."
Replying as AC but the issue here is actually that the default configuration provided as a reference was insecure. There was no actual flaw, just insecure defaults.
Please bring back BIOS update jumpers (Score:1, Insightful)
I am tired of having to rely on software security measures that will inevitably not work. Give me a fucking switch to turn off write access in hardware. The IT industry sucks.
Re: Please bring back BIOS update jumpers (Score:2)
Did you know that the audio chips don't really care which is a microphone and which is the speaker, and that either can be reprogrammed to the either? You don't need to bother unplugging your microphone if you're leaving your speakers plugged in. It's all software these days.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Speakers attached to an external amplifier can't be abused as microphones.
They can't. (Score:3, Informative)
They literally (intentionally?) broke the SPI write-lock switch back in the 8 MBit days and instead made it 'write-lock *ONLY IF* hardware sense pin+post-power on software enable are both set.' What does that mean in layman's terms? Glitching power can cause the SPI flash to believe it has been power cycled. Since the write protect requires software intervention to enable and since said write protect function is only normally run at boot time, said glitching can unlock the bios write protect post-boot, allo
dammit... (Score:1)
foiled again.
-some agency
That's it (Score:1)
All these Intel security flaws are insane. If the next MacBook Air replacement runs on Apple's A12 or whatever, I'm switching.
In other words (Score:2)
We can now jailbreak the laptop, and install our own open-souce, secure boot rom!
Let's get busy!
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah it's another one of those terrible flaws that allows you to own your own computer.
So, (Score:1)
we can use this flaw to patch out Intel ME?
Re: (Score:1)
Found out the hard way by Ubuntu last year (Score:4, Informative)
The problem was uncovered by Ubuntu last year: https://linux.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]
It was so grave they had to pull down released version and patch the workaround.
What about linux users ? (Score:2)