Nvidia has just released a security bulletin for its GPU drivers that identifies a number of potentially vulnerable versions, recommending that users update to the latest version immediately. The Nvidia driver issues affect GeForce gaming GPUs, Quadro workstation GPUs, and Tesla server GPUs.
For Windows gamers, if the driver for your Nvidia GPU is newer than version 596.36, you’re already safe from these issues, but if you’re running an older driver than this, you should update. That applies whether you’re running an old Nvidia graphics card or one of the latest and best graphics card options around.
To get the latest driver, you can simply navigate to Nvidia’s driver page and download the latest option for your configuration. All the latest available versions fix these security issues. You can find out which driver version you’re using by opening Nvidia Control Panel, where it’s shown on the opening page, or by opening the Nvidia App and going to the Drivers tab, as shown below.
As to what the issues are, Nvidia hasn’t gone into detail on its bulletin, but has identified that, for Windows users at least, there are problems in the kernel-mode driver and with driver resource handling, including a time-of-check/time-of-use issue, improper GPU resource access, and a driver-lock leak.
Crucially, exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow denial of service, privilege escalation, information disclosure, data tampering, or code execution. These factors are severe enough for Nvidia to rate these vulnerabilities in both Windows and Linux drivers as “High.” So, be under no doubt. You should update immediately.
The full list of known vulnerable versions of these drivers is shown in the two images above, so technically, if your system doesn’t fall into these criteria, it may not be vulnerable, but, in most instances, it’s still worth updating just in case.
