Intel confirms Centrino security flaw

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Intel has admitted to a security hole in its Centrino wireless chipset and issued a driver upgrade to deal with the flaw.

The problems are in the way Windows works with the Centrino wireless device driver's handling of frames. Once exploited it could give an attacker full privileges over the target machine.

"Security vulnerabilities have been identified in the Microsoft Windows drivers for the Intel 2200BG and 2915ABG PRO/Wireless Network Connection Hardware (w22n50.sys, w22n51.sys, w29n50.sys, w29n51.sys), which could potentially be exploited by attackers within range of the Wi-Fi station to execute arbitrary code on the target system with kernel-level privileges," said the company in a statement.

Intel hasn't found any evidence that the drivers are being used by hackers but the timing of the announcement could be related to a presentation at the forthcoming Black Hat Briefing hacking conference in Las Vegas. A talk is scheduled there by David Maynor, senior researcher at SecureWorks concerning hacking via driver flaws.

"The vulnerabilities are pretty awful," said Mikko Hyppönen, director of antivirus research at F-Secure.

"At least in theory, somebody could write a WLAN virus that would jump from one laptop to another if the laptops are too close to each other."

Intel is recommending Centrino users update their drivers to the most recent build, which can be found here. However, because it is the latest full driver, the download is 129.8MB.

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