Vulnerabilities popping up in mainstream processors aren’t a big deal, considering that people with malicious intent are trying to get a backdoor in any way they can, whether it’s through a bug present in the computer code or through some kind of exposure that hackers exploit and then try to steal your data. However, a new vulnerability called Sinkclose is said to have been present in AMD processors for over a decade, and it looks like it’s going to be revealed at the Defcon hacker conference by the folks at security company IOActive.
According to a report by WIRED, the Sinkclose vulnerability allows attackers to run their malicious code on AMD processors when they are in “system management mode,” which is a sensitive mode that contains important firmware files for operation.
However, to inject a piece of code, hackers need to gain “deep access to an AMD-based PC or server.” To gain control of your systems, attackers can use malware called a bootkit, which is undetectable by antivirus software and compromises the security of your systems.
Imagine a nation-wide hacker or someone else who wants to stay on your system. Even if you wipe the disk, it will still be there. It will be almost undetectable and almost impossible to fix. – Krzysztof Okupski, WIRED
To mitigate the issue, users will need to physically open the computer and plug in a hardware software tool known as an SPI Flash programmer, making the issue a bit tricky for the average consumer. Fortunately, AMD has acknowledged the vulnerability and thanked the researchers for closing Sink to the public.
In response, the firm released a new security bulletin dedicated to the vulnerability, along with an extensive list of affected processors, which includes Ryzen 3000 and above, as well as 1st-gen EPYC and above server processors. AMD is also offering firmware and microcode patches to mitigate the impact across multiple processor generations. Mitigations are available for all Ryzen and EPYC families, with the only remaining exception being the older Ryzen 3000 desktop family based on the Zen 2 core architecture.
So, it’s safe to say that AMD has identified the underlying issue. However, there’s still a lot to do, especially in terms of mitigating the vulnerability, most likely via a BIOS update. For the average consumer, there’s nothing to worry about yet, and we’ll let you know as soon as AMD releases a new BIOS update to cover all aspects.
