Patch Your Centrino Device Drivers

Written by Adam Gosling

Thursday, 03 August 2006

Intel has released a couple of patches for its Windows drivers for the Intel 2200BG and 2915ABG PRO/Wireless Network Connection Hardware. According to Intel, the vulnerability arises from the way these two models currently handle certain frames. The flaws are due to a memory corruption while parsing certain frames. Although Intel says it doesn't know of any malicious attacks from the vulnerability it is a serious bug in the device driver which could potentially be exploited by attackers within range of the Wi-Fi station to execute arbitrary code on the target system with kernel-level privileges. The notice about the patches on the F-Secure site says: "The vulnerabilities are pretty awful. Worst of them "could potentially be exploited by attackers within range of the Wi-Fi station to execute arbitrary code on the target system with kernel-level privileges". So at least in theory, somebody could write a WLAN virus that would jump from one laptop to another if the laptops are too close to each other." F-Secure also notes with amazement that the patch is more than 120MB, so don't download it till you get back to some cheap broadband. If you are unsure of the specific WLAN hardware on your machine Intel Has provided a link Here to help you identify it. The link here has more information and patches for other Intel Centrino vulnerabilities. Related news items Acer Notebook Emphasises Enterprise Security -23/11/2006 Check Point Plans Enterprise-Style Security For The Home -08/11/2006 Seagate To Encrypt Notebook Drives -30/10/2006 Unprotected Phones Abandoned At Airports -03/09/2006 Discarded Handhelds Reveal Secrets -30/08/2006 Newer news items Naughty Dell Notebooks Powerless On Qantas -23/08/2006 Cell Phone Forces Pilot To Abort Flight -14/08/2006 Dell To Recall Exploding Batteries -14/08/2006 3 Teams With AppSense For More Affordable Security -09/08/2006 Oh, Okay. Another Dell Explosion Story -04/08/2006 Older news items Laptop Battery Drama Lives On - In Mid-Air -13/07/2006 VeriSign To Secure WiMAX Networks -12/07/2006 Fortinet Offers Mobile Operators Security Solution -10/07/2006 PC Failures Down As Dell Laptop Blows Up -29/06/2006 Dell Laptop Explodes: Amazing Photos -21/06/2006 Tag This Now: