FAILLE AMD. Following the discovery of a security flaw, AMD has just released an update of its chipset drivers. A patch to be applied urgently to secure many processors and graphics circuits.
Security vulnerabilities do not only affect operating systems and web browsers; they can also lodge deep within computers – in processors, graphics circuits and the components that support them. Thus, Kyriakos Economou, security researcher and co-founder of the company ZeroPeril, recently discovered a vulnerability in AMD PC chips. More precisely, two vulnerabilities in the kernel of the amdpsp.sys driver for several AMD chipsets, the electronic circuits located on the motherboards which control the processors, the graphics modules and other components. Without going into overly technical considerations (all details are published in the full researcher’s report), the bugs found allow a hacker to recover sensitive information, including passwords, placed in an encrypted space protected from chips: a secure space linked to AMD’s PSP platform, also known as ‘Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), the equivalent of Intel’s SGX technology, with which the operating system communicates through the amdpsp.sys driver.
During its tests, Kyriakos Economo thus recovered gigabytes of data supposed to be encrypted, which allowed it to obtain administrator rights on the computer, and therefore to have all the powers. Several models of AMD chipsets, and even more motherboards, are affected by these vulnerabilities: the B350, A320, X370, X399, B450, X470, X570, B550, A520, TRX40 and WRX80. AMD recognized the problem and, after thanking the researcher for his discovery, quickly developed fixes to plug the loophole dubbed CVE-2021-26333. On a page of his site, the chip designer urges its users to urgently download and install an update for the affected drivers.
The list of AMD processors affected by the CVE-2021-26333 security vulnerability
On its site, AMD publishes a pretty impressive list of vulnerable processors and graphics circuits. A large number of models are concerned, old and recent, for desktop computers as well as for laptops.
- AMD 3000 Series mobile processors with Radeon graphics
- 6 AMD A-Series processorse generation with Radeon graphics circuit
- 6 AMD A-Series mobile processorse generation
- AMD FX APUs of 6e generation with Radeon R7 graphics circuit
- AMD APU Series A of 7e generation
- AMD A4 Series APU with Radeon Graphics
- AMD A6 APU with Radeon R5 graphics
- AMD A8 APU with Radeon R6 graphics
- AMD A10 APU with Radeon R6 graphics
- AMD E1 Series APU with Radeon Graphics
- AMD Athlon 3000 Series mobile processors with Radeon graphics
- AMD Athlon mobile processors with Radeon graphics
- AMD Athlon X4 processor
- AMD Athlon 3000 Series mobile processors with Radeon graphics
- 7 AMD A-Series mobile processorse generation
- AMD E-Series 7 mobile processorse generation
- AMD Ryzen 2000 series mobile processors
- 2 AMD Ryzen mobile processorse generation with Radeon graphics circuit
- AMD Ryzen 3000 Series mobile processors with Radeon graphics
- AMD Ryzen 3000 Series mobile processors
- AMD Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors with Radeon graphics
- AMD Ryzen 1000 Series Desktop Processors
- AMD Ryzen 2000 Series Desktop Processors
- AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Desktop Processors
- AMD Ryzen 4000 Series Desktop Processors with Radeon Graphics
- AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processor
- AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processor with Radeon Graphics
- 1st Generation AMD Ryzen Threadripper Processors
- 2 AMD Ryzen Threadripper processorse generation
- 3 AMD Ryzen Threadripper processorse generation
- AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro processor
AMD therefore recommends updating to the AMD PSP driver 5.17.0.0 via Windows Update or with the AMD Chipset Driver 3.08.17.735. You will find all the official AMD drivers up to date at this support page. In principle, Windows Update should also report the existence of a new version when checking for an update. Install it as soon as possible to avoid any risk of hacking.