Security News > 2023 > June > Millions of Gigabyte PC motherboards backdoored? What's the actual score?

Gigabyte ships a wide range of motherboard models that come with an App Center utility, which is supposed to keep the system's firmware, drivers, and related software up to date.

The UEFI firmware Gigabyte ships with its motherboards performs a number of actions as the system boots.

On Windows PCs, this includes quietly writing a Windows program that's embedded in the firmware to disk as GigabyteUpdateService.

They've found no evidence that the vulnerability is being actively exploited, just that the way Gigabyte's firmware works is insecure and makes life a little easier for would-be intruders.

For now, you can make sure App Center's download-and-install feature is switched off, which prevents the firmware from running its update service and thus prevents the fetching of code from the internet.

The Register asked Gigabyte for comment; we'll let you know if we hear anything back.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/06/02/gigabyte_uefi_backdoor/