Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
AMD has fixed, but not yet released BIOS/UEFI/firmware updates for the general public for a security flaw affecting the AMD Secure Processor.
[...] Cfir Cohen, a security researcher with the Google Cloud Security Team, says he discovered a vulnerability in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) of the AMD Secure Processor. The TPM is a component to store critical system data such as passwords, certificates, and encryption keys, in a secure environment and outside of the more easily accessible AMD cores.
"Through manual static analysis, we've found a stack-based overflow in the function EkCheckCurrentCert," Cohen says. The researcher claims that an attacker could use specially-crafted EK certificates to get remote code execution rights on the AMD Secure Processor, allowing him to compromise its security.
Cohen said that some basic mitigation techniques such as "stack cookies, NX stack, ASLR" were not implemented in AMD's Secure Processor, making exploitation trivial.
takyon: This bug is unrelated to Meltdown and Spectre. And you might be interested in this:
Source: Security Flaw in AMD's Secure Chip-On-Chip Processor Disclosed Online
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday January 07 2018, @07:33PM
At a social level? They make more money making insecure crap, as long as people buy it.
It doesn't even really matter how many people it kills. As long as their insanely sloppy process 'complies with industry standards' they won't be held responsible. It will be written off as an inexplicable, unavoidable tragedy. "All software has bugs" they will say.
I'm thinking they learned that from the same guy that told us "there are no right or wrong answers in mathematics."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?