Millions of PC Motherboards Were Sold With a Firmware Backdoor
www.wired.com
Hidden code in hundreds of models of Gigabyte motherboards invisibly and insecurely downloads programs—a feature ripe for abuse, researchers say.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/721048

“While Eclypsium says the hidden code is meant to be an innocuous tool to keep the motherboard’s firmware updated, researchers found that it’s implemented insecurely, potentially allowing the mechanism to be hijacked and used to install malware instead of Gigabyte’s intended program.”

  • lo________________ol@lemmy.oneEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Does this mean that desktop computers are sending (or at least can send) your Wi-Fi passwords from the OS into the motherboard firmware? I don’t know if I want them to do this at all, but if they must, I hope it’s being done explicitly.

    I just realized there was actually a linked article and… The way they actually do it seems worse.

    Eclypsium automated heuristics detected firmware on Gigabyte systems that drops an executable Windows binary that is executed during the Windows startup process.

    This executable binary insecurely downloads and executes additional payloads from the Internet.

    Edit: formatting, I am learning