The Intel Driver Update Utility is not the most commonly found application on PCs but someone you know may have stumbled upon it or had it installed by Geek Squad or the local equivalent. Since Windows Vista the tool has been available, it checks your system for any Intel parts, from your APU to your NIC and then looks for any applicable drivers that are available. Unfortunately it was doing so over a non-SSL URL which leaves the utility wide open to a man in the middle attack and you really do not want a compromised NIC driver. The Inquirer reports today that Intel quietly updated the tool on January 19th to resolve the issue, ensuring all communication and downloads are over SSL. If you know anyone using this tool, recommend they update it immediately.
"Intel has issued a fix for a major security vulnerability in a driver utility tool that could have allowed a man-in-the-middle attack and a malware maelstrom on victims' computers."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
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- Synaptics IronVeil Fingerprint Security Technology @ eTeknix
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I don’t understand why this
I don’t understand why this tool is so hit or miss. I mean it is from Intel it should be able to identify all the Intel parts in the computer I am working on. However, I would say often, after a scan, it claims no hardware found.
Yeah, it rarely works for me.
Yeah, it rarely works for me. I find it takes less time to simply download the latest chipset driver bundle, network bundle, etc. and run them. The one that ALWAYS eludes me is the “SM BUS CONTROLLER” and the Intel Management Engine or whatever it is. C’mon Intel, just roll up all your drivers into a unified setup like NVIDIA and AMD. It’s not that hard.
I don’t understand their
I don’t understand their driver support either. I have a eight year old netbook that has an N270 and whatever crappy integrated graphics that came with its chipset that has support from intel for Windows 10 and runs fine, but my four year newer dual core atom HP mini doesn’t get a driver for its integrated part which forces windows to run at 800 by 600 in Windows 10…
Seriously you trust Intel to
Seriously you trust Intel to make good drivers and software? Don’t forget their RAID management software caused good drives to show up as failing in RAID arrays.
I think I have this on my
I think I have this on my NUC. Seemed like a reasonable thing to have on an all-Intel computer (save some memory and an SSD). Driver update utilities seem great in concept, but like anything else, there’s always a catch. Haha. Found it.
I think in most cases it is
I think in most cases it is safer and less burdensome to have Windows update take care of driver updates. I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with separate driver update utilities. Geforce experience is my least favorite so far.
Or the Intel Driver Update
Or the Intel Driver Update Utility tells you that your Intel HD graphics drivers are OEM Modded and Intel can not install its generic Intel HD graphics drivers, so the user has to rely on the laptop OEM’s mercy to provide the updated drivers that are certified to work with their laptop. And if you have a discrete laptop GPU from AMD, and probably Nvidia also, the Intel Drivers are modded to work with the Discrete GPUs drivers for GPU switching by the OEM, and GPU’s maker, so that the GPU maker’s switchable graphics will play nice with the Intel integrated graphics drivers. So that means that the laptop OEM/discrete GPU maker is probably doing the graphics driver updates for both the discrete GPU, and Intel’s slightly modded HD graphics drivers so they will work on the specific laptop’s discrete graphics switching hardware/drivers.
I did just recently receive a driver update for my HP Probook’s 4540s laptop from windows update for its AMD 7650M discrete mobile GPU(Dec 2014) and even the Intel HD 4000 graphics drivers are listed as provided by AMD, so its probably been modded by AMD to work with AMD’s switchable graphics software/drivers! On further looking at the AMD portion of the graphics driver, it shows the December 2014 update date, while the Intel graphics shows 2012 for its last update, but still the Intel part is listed by windows device manager as coming from AMD.
I’m not as worried about Intel’s update software because most of my laptops don’t have generic Intel graphics drivers, the drivers are OEM modded to work on the specific laptop’s hardware, and Intel does not even require users to be logged in to receive driver updates as far as I know, but what is the exact name of the Intel software that is installed so users can look to see if they ever installed in on their laptops.
This is honestly the first
This is honestly the first I’ve heard about an Intel Update Utility, but from reading this, I think I was just as well off not knowing.
I’ve never had this tool
I’ve never had this tool actually work.
Will give it a try though.
EDIT: No go, still doesn’t find any Intel Products on my system (despite having 2 separate Intel NICs, X99 chipset, etc…)