If you've got a modern Gigabyte motherboard there's a BIOS setting you need to disable to avoid PC's latest security calamity
It's not a great time to be a motherboard manufacturer. First, Asus risks burning up your Ryzen processor with overly aggressive voltage settings in its firmware (even the supposed 'fix') and now Gigabyte is accused of using the same sorts of backdoor techniques as «threat actors» looking to hack into systems.
The vulnerability has been discovered by security company, Eclypsium (via Wired), and points to millions of Gigabyte motherboards out in the wild with the same invisible firmware updating mechanism.
«We are working with Gigabyte to address this insecure implementation of their app center capability,» reads its report. «In the interest of protecting organizations from malicious actors, we are also publicly disclosing this information and defensive strategies on a more accelerated timeline than a typical vulnerability disclosure.»
Eclypsium has published a list of the affected motherboards (pdf warning), but basically if you have a modern Gigabyte motherboard the chances are that your current mobo is going to be on this extensive list. There are reportedly 271 different models on the list, but I've not counted because the pdf file runs over three pages and three columns of pretty small typeface. Suffice to say, it's a lot of boards.
It also doesn't matter if you're running an AMD or Intel system; the vulnerability affects both platforms.
All it would theoretically take is someone on the same network as your machine intercepting Gigabyte's insecure updater and pointing it to a different URL than the standard firmware repositories. One of the worst parts of this is that, of the three possible download locations, one of them is using a plain HTTP address, not the far more secure HTTPS.
Eclypsium has stated that it
Read more on pcgamer.com
