CVE-2024-33659 in AptioV
Summary
by MITRE • 02/11/2025
AMI APTIOV contains a vulnerability in BIOS where an attacker may cause an Improper Input Validation by a local attacker. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities may lead to overwriting arbitrary memory and execute arbitrary code at SMM level, also impacting Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/02/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-33659 resides within the AMI APTIOV BIOS implementation, representing a critical security flaw that demonstrates poor input validation practices at the firmware level. This weakness manifests as an improper input validation issue that can be exploited by local attackers who possess physical access to the target system. The vulnerability's presence in the BIOS firmware layer is particularly concerning as it operates at a privileged level that can bypass traditional operating system security controls and access system resources directly.
The technical nature of this vulnerability allows for arbitrary memory overwrites and execution of code at the System Management Mode (SMM) level, which represents one of the most privileged execution contexts within a computer system. SMM operates outside the normal operating system environment and maintains its own memory space, making code execution at this level extremely dangerous as it can compromise the entire system integrity. This flaw enables attackers to manipulate system behavior at a fundamental level, potentially leading to persistent backdoors or complete system compromise.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends across all three core principles of information security: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Confidentiality is compromised as attackers can potentially access sensitive system data and memory contents that should remain protected. Integrity suffers significantly as the vulnerability allows for arbitrary code execution that can modify system behavior, replace critical firmware components, or establish persistent malicious presence. Availability is also at risk as the exploitation could lead to system instability or complete system failure, potentially resulting in denial of service conditions that persist even after system reboot.
From a cybersecurity framework perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-20, which specifically addresses improper input validation issues, and represents a significant concern within the ATT&CK framework under the T1068 technique for Exploitation for Privilege Escalation. The attack surface for this vulnerability is limited to local access scenarios but remains extremely dangerous due to the privileged execution context involved. Organizations should consider implementing firmware integrity monitoring solutions and maintaining current firmware updates from AMI to address this vulnerability. Additionally, physical security controls should be reinforced to prevent unauthorized local access to systems, as this vulnerability requires physical presence to exploit effectively. The remediation approach must include firmware updates from the vendor and potentially hardware-level security measures to prevent unauthorized firmware modifications that could enable exploitation of this memory corruption vulnerability.