Microsoft’s Safety Copilot, an AI-powered safety evaluation instrument, has uncovered a number of vulnerabilities inside extensively used open-source bootloaders, together with GRUB2, U-Boot, and Barebox. These flaws, if exploited, might permit attackers to execute arbitrary code, doubtlessly bypassing safety measures like Safe Boot.
The corporate has disclosed the findings in a weblog publish. The vulnerabilities had been primarily discovered within the filesystem parsing elements of those bootloaders. Bootloaders are important items of software program that provoke the startup technique of the working system.
The invention highlights the potential dangers related to shared code throughout completely different open-source tasks, as comparable vulnerabilities had been recognized in a number of bootloaders.
Microsoft Safety researchers leveraged Safety Copilot to speed up the vulnerability discovery course of. By specializing in filesystem functionalities, identified to have excessive vulnerability potential, the instrument aided in figuring out potential safety points.
Notably, it helped pinpoint an integer overflow vulnerability in GRUB2 as proven within the picture beneath, which was additional investigated and confirmed by guide evaluation.
The instrument’s potential to determine comparable patterns throughout completely different recordsdata and bootloaders was essential in guaranteeing complete protection and validation of the findings. The weblog publish talked about, “This method saved our workforce roughly per week’s price of time that will have in any other case been spent manually reviewing the content material.”
The vulnerabilities in GRUB2, if exploited, might permit attackers to bypass Safe Boot, a essential safety function designed to make sure solely trusted software program masses throughout startup. This is able to doubtlessly allow the set up of bootkits, malicious software program that grants attackers management over the gadget.
Whereas exploiting the U-Boot and Barebox vulnerabilities would doubtless require bodily gadget entry, their discovery underscores the significance of rigorous safety evaluation in open-source software program.
Microsoft has communicated these vulnerabilities to the related maintainers, and patches have been issued to repair the recognized points. This incident highlights the aptitude of AI-driven instruments in bettering cybersecurity analysis.
The corporate additionally just lately launched Microsoft Safety Copilot brokers that declare to get smarter over time.
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