Security News > 2020 > June > AMD Preparing Patches for UEFI SMM Vulnerability
AMD last week said it was preparing patches for a vulnerability affecting the System Management Mode of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface shipped with systems that use certain notebook and embedded processors.
Discovered by security researcher Danny Odler in AMD's Mini PC and tracked as CVE-2020-12890, the vulnerability is one of the three issues reported in April, allowing an attacker to manipulate secure firmware and execute arbitrary code while avoiding detection.
"AMD is aware of new research related to a potential vulnerability in AMD software technology supplied to motherboard manufacturers for use in their Unified Extensible Firmware Interface infrastructure and plans to complete delivery of updated versions designed to mitigate the issue by the end of June 2020," the chip maker announced.
The company also explains that an attacker looking to exploit the vulnerability needs privileged physical or administrative access to a system that includes one of the affected AMD notebook or embedded processors.
"If this level of access is acquired, an attacker could potentially manipulate the AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture to execute arbitrary code undetected by the operating system," AMD says.
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Related Vulnerability
| DATE | CVE | VULNERABILITY TITLE | RISK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-12-10 | CVE-2020-12890 | Unspecified vulnerability in AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture Improper handling of pointers in the System Management Mode (SMM) handling code may allow for a privileged attacker with physical or administrative access to potentially manipulate the AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA) to execute arbitrary code undetected by the operating system. | 7.2 |