Change the AMD K8 CPU without authentication checks

By / / business, security, tech in changing society, technology / bad, bruce_schneier, business, hardware, lamo, problem, security

From Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram Newsletter (15 August 2004):

Here’s an interesting hardware security vulnerability. Turns out that it’s possible to update the AMD K8 processor (Athlon64 or Opteron) microcode. And, get this, there’s no authentication check. So it’s possible that an attacker who has access to a machine can backdoor the CPU.

[See http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?action=detail&id=35446&threadid=35446&roomid=11]