Saturday, 1. August 2009
Topic: COMPUTER - on August 1, 2009 at 10:11:00 AM CEST
Researchers find insecure BIOS 'rootkit' pre-loaded in laptops
A popular laptop theft-recovery service that ships on notebooks made by HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Gateway, Asus and Panasonic is actually a dangerous BIOS rootkit that can be hijacked and controlled by malicious hackers.
The service — called Computrace LoJack for Laptops — contains design vulnerabilities and a lack of strong authentication that can lead to “a complete and persistent compromise of an affected system,” according to Black Hat conference presentation by researchers Alfredo Ortega and Anibal Sacco from Core Security Technologies.
