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BIOS "Rootkit" Preloaded In 60% of New Laptops

Posted by kdawson on from the hijacking-lojack dept.

Keldrin_1 writes "Researchers Alfredo Ortega and Anibal Sacco, from Core Security Technologies, have discovered a vulnerability in the 'Computrace LoJack for Laptops' software. This is a BIOS-level application that calls home for instructions in case the laptop is ever lost or stolen. However, what the application considers 'home' is subject to change. This allows the creation of malware capable of 'infecting the BIOS with persistent code that survive reboots and reflashing attempts.' Computers from Dell, Lenovo, HP, Toshiba, Asus, and others may be affected."

3 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Re:60%? Really? by cachimaster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know it's hard to believe. When doing our research (I'm Alfredo, hi!) we couldn't find a notebook *without* the Computrace agent. It's bad.

  2. Re:60%? Really? by _bug_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Any way to tell if your laptop has this "feature"?

    And is there any way to disable it?

  3. Re:It is time by DadLeopard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Been there, had that, in the 80s! Atari 1040ST had TOS (Tramiel Operating System) on EPROMs! Have yet to se a virus or rootkit that carried an EPROM eraser around with it, so as long as you booted up without media in the drives machine was guaranteed clean! God I miss That machine!! GEM was sweet!