'If your organization uses servers that are equipped with baseboard management controllers from Supermicro, it may be time, once again, to patch seven high-severity vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to gain control of them. And sorry, but the fixes must be installed manually. Typically abbreviated as BMCs, baseboard management controllers are small chips that are soldered onto the motherboard of servers inside data centers. Administrators rely on these powerful controllers for various remote management capabilities, including installing updates, monitoring temperatures and setting fan speeds accordingly, and reflashing the UEFI system firmware that allows servers to load their operating systems during reboots. BMCs provide these capabilities and more, even when the servers they’re connected to are turned off. The potential for vulnerabilities in BMCs to be exploited and used to take control of servers hasn’t been lost on hackers. In 2021, hackers exploited a vulnerability in BMCs from HP Enterprise and installed a custom rootkit, researchers from Amnpardaz, a security firm in Iran, reported that year. ILObleed, as the researchers named the rootkit, hid inside the iLO, a module in HPE BMCs that’s short for Integrated Lights-Out. ILObleed was programmed to destroy data stored on disk. If admins reinstalled the operating system, iLObleed would remain intact and reactivate the disk-wiping attack repeatedly. The unknown attackers responsible took control of the BMCs by exploiting a vulnerability HPE had fixed four years earlier. In June, the National Security Agency urged admins to follow guidance to prevent such incidents.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/vulnerabilities-in-supermicro-bmcs-... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/