This dangerous Intel CPU vulnerability could allow attackers to break into your laptop
Bug affects wide range of popular Intel processors
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Intelhas disclosed a high-severity elevation of privilege vulnerability that affects a wide range ofprocessorfamilies made in the past few years.
The flaw, tracked asCVE-2021-0146was discovered by Positive Technologies. It stems from an overprivileged debugging system that’s insufficiently protected, and can be exploited by attackers to accessencrypted files.
According to Positive Technologies, the vulnerability affects the Pentium, Celeron and Atom processors of the Apollo Lake, Gemini Lake and Gemini Lake Refresh platforms, which are popularly used inmobile devices, embedded systems, and Internet of Things(IoT)devices, such assmart home appliances, medical equipment, andsmart cars.
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High severity vulnerability
Citing an example of a real world threat, Mark Ermolov, thecybersecurityresearcher who discovered the bug, says attackers can use the vulnerability to extract the encryption key and access confidential encrypted information from a lost or stolenlaptop.
“The bug can also be exploited in targeted attacks across the supply chain. For example, an employee of anIntelprocessor-based device supplier could, in theory, extract the Intel CSME [Converged Security and Management Engine] firmware key and deploy spyware thatsecurity softwarewould not detect,” adds Ermolov.
Furthermore, the severity of the vulnerability can be assessed from the fact that it can also facilitate the extraction of the root encryption key used in Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT) and Intel Enhanced Privacy ID (EPID) technologies.
Ermolov says severalAmazone-book models use Intel EPID-based protection for digital rights management (DRM), and the bug can enable attackers to break into the devices and download DRM-protected content.
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The good news is that Intel has released a firmware update to mitigate this flaw, and the researchers suggest users immediately install the UEFI BIOS updates published by the manufacturers of their affected devices.
With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.
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