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‘Sinkclose’ Flaw in Hundreds of Millions of AMD Chips Allows Deep, Virtually Unfixable Infections (www.wired.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Requires ring 0 access to the system in the first place. So for any normal user it's a nothing burger

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Not quite a nothingburger

Nissim and Okupski note that exploiting the bug would require hackers to already have obtained relatively deep access to an AMD-based PC or server, but that the Sinkclose flaw would then allow them to plant their malicious code far deeper still. In fact, for any machine with one of the vulnerable AMD chips, the IOActive researchers warn that an attacker could infect the computer with malware known as a “bootkit” that evades antivirus tools and is potentially invisible to the operating system, while offering a hacker full access to tamper with the machine and surveil its activity.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I know, but this requires a supply chain attack - not a likely thing to happen,

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This does not require a supply chain attack, just a user ignorantly clicking yes on a UAC prompt. After which the machine is forever compromised, even after replacing ssds / hdds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't it be fixed by wiping the drives and re flashing the bios ? (Or the opposite order)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

From my understanding it allows malicious code to be installed in protected memory on the CPU itself, so you can't get rid of it once it's there without a lot of extra work

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