Select Dell Client Commercial and Consumer platforms contain a pre-boot direct memory access (DMA) vulnerability. An authenticated attacker with physical access to the system may potentially exploit this vulnerability in order to execute arbitrary code on the device.
The product enables a Direct Memory Access (DMA) capable device before the security configuration settings are established, which allows an attacker to extract data from or gain privileges on the product.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alienware_area_51m_r1_firmware | Dell | * | 1.16.0 (excluding) |
DMA is included in a number of devices because it allows data transfer between the computer and the connected device, using direct hardware access to read or write directly to main memory without any OS interaction. An attacker could exploit this to access secrets. Several virtualization-based mitigations have been introduced to thwart DMA attacks. These are usually configured/setup during boot time. However, certain IPs that are powered up before boot is complete (known as early boot IPs) may be DMA capable. Such IPs, if not trusted, could launch DMA attacks and gain access to assets that should otherwise be protected.