• Is firmware patching important?

    ON SECURITY

    Susan Bradley

    By Susan Bradley

    Firmware patching has always been fraught with concern.

    Until very recently, applying firmware updates often meant launching the update process from a DOS prompt. You often received warnings that if your computer lost power during the process, your machine might be bricked. This is such a daunting thought that, for servers, I would often update the firmware when I initially installed the server and never touch it again.

    But firmware is nothing more than software, and — like every other kind of software these days — attackers find vulnerabilities in firmware. Recently, researchers found security issues in Lenovo consumer notebook firmware.

    Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.19.0, 2022-05-09).