Most of these BIOS-related vulnerabilities are very impactful as they can effectively bypass nearly all security measures on a local PC. Most security measures run as part of the operating system, or on top of the OS, which only loads after the BIOS runs its initial POST (Power-On Self-Test). This means all regular security countermeasures are unable to protect the system BIOS.
Intel says it is releasing firmware updates to mitigate the vulnerabilities, but it has yet to release a formal roadmap. However, the company says the recommended course of action is to "update to the latest versions provided by the system manufacturer that addresses these issues." It isn't clear that those updates are available yet, though. Below you'll find the list of impacted platforms.
Affected Products:
- 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processor Family
- Intel Xeon Scalable Processor Family
- Intel Xeon Processor W Family
- Intel Xeon Processor E Family
- Intel Xeon Processor D Family
- 11th Generation Intel Core Processor Family
- 10th Generation Intel Core Processor Family
- 9th Generation Intel Core Processor Family
- 8th Generation Intel Core Processor Family
- 7th Generation Intel Core Processor Family
- 6th Generation Intel Core processor Family
- Intel Core X-series Processor Family
- Intel Atom Processor C3XXX Family.
