Recent news and reports in technology media and from leading security researchers indicate continued interest in UEFI security exploits (see: MoonBounce, Insyde vulnerability). Following this trend, security researchers from Binarly made a presentation last week at the OffensiveCon 2022 security event in Berlin titled “UEFI Firmware Vulnerabilities: Past, Present and Future”. In the “Past” portion of its presentation, Binarly referred to a firmware vulnerability located in a section of UEFI BIOS firmware reference source code from AMI.
In short, AMI can confidently state that the vulnerability described in the presentation is firmly in the past – as indicated within the presentation. AMI resolved and closed this security issue several years ago. However, to alleviate any potential concern that our partners, customers or end-users may have, AMI can share the following additional details:
What is the compromised code in question?
The Binarly presentation refers to a section of AMI UEFI BIOS reference code in the context of showing historical and current examples of UEFI firmware vulnerabilities. It specifically mentioned the “AMI UsbRT architecture” and described an attack methodology for a vulnerability within it. AMI would like to emphasize that this portion of AMI source code is now approximately seven years old and no longer featured in current AMI UEFI products.
Should AMI partners, customers or end-users of AMI UEFI Firmware products have any concerns?
AMI would like to clarify that this attack represents something that was patched/resolved by AMI several years ago and is no longer a viable point of attack. The code in question is no longer a part of AMI products and was addressed and remediated by AMI as soon as we were made aware of it. Therefore, it represents a past, closed security issue that has no relevance in 2022. All software producers should be aware that any product deployed in the past affected by security issues will continue to be susceptible to the same security issues until remediated.
Does AMI have a solution for future issues like this that may arise?
With its BIOS and BMC firmware products deployed on most computing systems across the globe, AMI is deeply committed to its role as a leader in firmware security. The company has established an in-house product security incident response team to respond to security issues rapidly and decisively. The team provides recommendations to its OEM/ODM customers and the industry at large through AMI Security Advisories and other communication channels. These security advisories enable customers to enact timely downstream remediation in the form of guidance and patches. For AMI OEM/ODM customers, we request that you contact your AMI Sales Representative for our latest Security Advisory information. See here for more details: https://amitkdev1.wpengine.com/security-center/
