India’s national cybersecurity agency, CERT-In, operating under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has issued a high-severity security advisory warning of critical vulnerabilities affecting popular PC motherboards used in millions of Windows-based systems across the country. The alert underscores serious risks at the early boot stage of affected devices, where weaknesses in security controls could allow system integrity to be compromised under certain conditions. Given the scale of deployment of these systems across personal, enterprise, educational, and government environments, the advisory has wide-ranging implications.
The vulnerabilities primarily impact motherboards manufactured by leading global vendors including ASRock Inc., GIGABYTE, MSI, ASUS, and AMD-based platforms. Specifically, systems built on Intel’s 500, 600, 700, and 800 series chipsets, along with several AMD chipset platforms, are listed as affected. These chipsets form the backbone of a vast number of desktop systems currently in use, making the potential exposure both broad and significant.
According to CERT-In, the identified flaws are linked to weaknesses in early boot protection mechanisms, which are designed to ensure that systems start securely and remain protected from unauthorized modifications. If these vulnerabilities are successfully exploited, an attacker could bypass critical security checks, gain elevated privileges, and take control of the affected system. The risk is considered particularly high in scenarios where attackers may have physical access to devices, such as shared workspaces, public institutions, or unsecured office environments.
The advisory emphasizes that such compromises could undermine foundational security assumptions, potentially enabling persistent threats that are difficult to detect or remediate once embedded at the firmware or boot level. This raises concerns not only for individual users but also for organizations handling sensitive data or operating critical infrastructure.
CERT-In has strongly advised organizations, IT administrators, and individual users to proactively assess their systems. This includes reviewing motherboard models, chipset details, and firmware versions to determine exposure. Users are encouraged to follow mitigation guidance provided by vendors, apply recommended firmware or BIOS updates, and strengthen physical security controls where applicable.
The alert serves as a reminder of the growing importance of hardware and firmware security in today’s threat landscape, where attackers increasingly target foundational layers of computing systems to achieve long-term and stealthy access.
