Intel Confirms Alder Lake BIOS Source Code Leak, New Details Emerge

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https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-confirms-6gb-alder-lake-bios-source-code-leak-new-details-emerge

We recently broke the news that Intel's Alder Lake BIOS source code had been leaked to 4chan and Github, with the 6GB file containing tools and code for building and optimizing BIOS/UEFI images. We reported the leak within hours of the initial occurrence, so we didn't yet have confirmation from Intel that the leak was genuine. Intel has now issued a statement to Tom's Hardware confirming the incident:

Intel Confirms Alder Lake BIOS Source Code Leak, New Details Emerge

Hack's perpetrator and origins remain unknown.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[upnorth]

Our proprietary UEFI code appears to have been leaked by a third party. We do not believe this exposes any new security vulnerabilities as we do not rely on obfuscation of information as a security measure. This code is covered under our bug bounty program within the Project Circuit Breaker campaign, and we encourage any researchers who may identify potential vulnerabilities to bring them our attention through this program. We are reaching out to both customers and the security research community to keep them informed of this situation." — Intel spokesperson.

famed security researcher Mark Ermolov has already been hard at work analyzing the code. His early reports indicate that he has found secret MSRs (Model Specific Registers) that are typically reserved for privileged code and thus can present a security problem, along with the private signing key used for Intel's Boot Guard, thus potentially invalidating the feature. In addition, there are also signs of ACMs (Authenticated Code Modules) for BootGuard and TXT (Trusted Execution Technology), portending potential future issues with the root of trust.

The impact and breadth of discoveries could be limited, though. Most motherboard vendors and OEMs would have similar tools and information available to build firmware for Intel platforms. Moreover, Intel's statement that it doesn't rely upon information obfuscation as a security measure means it has likely scrubbed the most overly-sensitive material before releasing it to external vendors.