CVE-2018-19323
Published: 21 December 2018
Summary
CVE-2018-19323 is a critical-severity an unspecified weakness vulnerability in Gigabyte Aorus Graphics Engine. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked in the top 5.4% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Deeper analysis
The vulnerability is an exposure of Machine Specific Register (MSR) read and write functionality in the GDrv low-level driver shipped with GIGABYTE APP Center v1.05.21 and earlier, AORUS GRAPHICS ENGINE versions before 1.57, XTREME GAMING ENGINE versions before 1.26, and OC GURU II v2.08. This issue received a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.8 and is tracked under CVE-2018-19323.
An unauthenticated attacker can invoke the exposed driver interfaces to read or write MSRs. Successful exploitation grants the ability to alter processor configuration, disable security features, or execute arbitrary code with full system privileges.
Gigabyte published security advisory 1801 along with updated software packages on its support site that address the affected graphics utilities and drivers; the full disclosure and technical analysis are also available via the referenced Seclists and SecureAuth Labs reports.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2018-11021
Vulnerability details
The GDrv low-level driver in GIGABYTE APP Center v1.05.21 and earlier, AORUS GRAPHICS ENGINE before 1.57, XTREME GAMING ENGINE before 1.26, and OC GURU II v2.08 exposes functionality to read and write Machine Specific Registers (MSRs).
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 24 October 2022
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly enforces authorization checks on the GDrv driver's exposed MSR read/write interfaces so that unauthenticated or unprivileged callers cannot invoke them.
Requires that the dangerous MSR functionality be restricted to only those processes that require it, eliminating the blanket exposure that grants full system privileges.
Limits the driver to the minimum set of functions actually needed, removing the unnecessary low-level MSR read/write capability that enables the attack.