Threat Awareness – Firmware Attacks Precipitated by Legacy Devices and Hybrid Work Models

The threat of compromise via firmware attacks is becoming an increasing concern for IT professionals. Between hybrid work models and continued reliance on legacy systems, it’s increasingly more challenging for IT staff to secure firmware on devices that may not be in the office or older systems that simply don’t support device security.

According to a survey by HP Wolf Security, 83 percent of IT leaders surveyed believe that firmware attacks against laptops and PCs now pose a significant threat as many workers are now remote. Furthermore, the legacy devices that were created before resilience considerations for hardware and firmware were a concern, pose greater risk of suffering a disruptive attack. Ultimately, “Firmware attacks are very disruptive and much harder to detect or remediate than your typical malware – often requiring expert and even manual intervention to fix. This increases the cost and complexity of remediation considerably, particularly in hybrid environments where devices are not on site for IT teams to access,” said Dr. Ian Pratt, global head of security for personal systems at HP. Read more at HelpNetSecurity.