A team of researchers from security vendor Cylance demonstrated a proof-of-concept ransomware program that ran inside a motherboard’s Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
Over the past few years, the world has seen ransomware threats advance from living inside browsers to operating systems, to the bootloader, and now to the low-level firmware that powers a computer’s hardware components.
Earlier this year, a team of researchers from security vendor Cylance demonstrated a proof-of-concept ransomware program that ran inside a motherboard’s Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)—the modern BIOS.
On Friday, at the Black Hat Asia security conference, the team revealed how they did it: by exploiting vulnerabilities in the firmware of two models of ultra compact PCs from Taiwanese computer manufacturer Gigabyte Technology.
The two vulnerabilities affect the GB-BSi7H-6500 and GB-BXi7-5775 models of Gigabyte’s Mini-PC Barebone (BRIX) platform. They allow an attacker with access to the OS to elevate their privileges and execute malicious code in System Management Mode (SMM), a special operating mode of the CPU that allows executing low-level software.
UEFI vulnerabilities are not new and researchers have presented such flaws over the years at security conferences. They’re valuable for attackers because they can be used to install highly persistent malware that can reinfect an operating system even after it’s completely wiped and reinstalled.
