AMD Details Three Vulnerabilities Affecting Radeon Graphics Drivers, Ryzen Master

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Image: AMD

October has been an unusually busy month for AMD’s security page. Within the span of a week, the company divulged three new vulnerabilities, two of which affect AMD graphics drivers: CreateAllocation (CVE-2020-12911), AMD Ryzen Master Driver Vulnerability (CVE-2020-12928), and Escape Handler (CVE-2020-12933).

We’ve copied AMD’s security bulletins below, but the Ryzen Master vulnerability appears to be the more worrisome one. While the others merely lead to blue screens, CVE-2020-12928 may allow for authenticated users to elevate from user to system privileges.

Luckily, AMD has already released a mitigation for it. The Escape Handler vulnerability has also been patched in the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition update.

Escape Handler (CVE-2020-12933)

10/13/2020

Our ecosystem collaborator Cisco Talos has published a new potential vulnerability in AMD graphics drivers, which may result in a blue screen. The issue was addressed in Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition available here.

AMD believes that confidential information and long-term system functionality are not impacted, and users can resolve the issue by restarting the computer.

A specially crafted D3DKMTEscape request can cause an out-of-bounds read in Windows OS kernel memory area. This vulnerability can be triggered from a non-privileged account.

We thank the researchers for their ongoing collaboration and coordinated disclosure. More information on their research can be found on the Cisco Talos website.

AMD Ryzen Master Driver Vulnerability (CVE-2020-12928)

10/13/2020

A researcher has discovered a potential security vulnerability impacting AMD Ryzen Master that may allow authenticated users to elevate from user to system privileges. AMD has released a mitigation in AMD Ryzen Master 2.2.0.1543. AMD believes that the attack must come from a non-privileged process already running on the system when the local user runs AMD Ryzenâ„¢ Master and that a remote attack has not been demonstrated. The latest version of the software is available for download at https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/ryzen-master.

We thank the researcher for the ongoing collaboration and coordinated disclosure.

CreateAllocation (CVE-2020-12911)

10/7/2020

Our ecosystem collaborator Cisco Talos has published a new potential vulnerability in AMD graphics drivers, which may result in a blue screen. AMD believes that confidential information and long-term system functionality are not impacted, and that the user can resolve the issue by restarting the computer. AMD plans to issue updated graphics drivers to address the issue in the first quarter of 2021.

The research finds that a specially crafted D3DKMTCreateAllocation API request can cause an out-of-bounds read and denial of service (BSOD). This vulnerability can be triggered from non-privileged accounts.

We thank the researchers for their ongoing collaboration and coordinated disclosure. More information on their research can be found on the Cisco Talos website.

Tsing Mui
News poster at The FPS Review.

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