Intel Xeon system firmware: insufficient input validation lets a privileged local user escalate out of the OS

CVSS 8.2CVE-2019-11137Firmware, BMC & network fabriccurated

Impact

Insufficient input validation in Intel system firmware (UEFI, 2019.2 IPU) on Xeon Scalable, Xeon D, Xeon E5/E7 v4 and Atom C parts lets a privileged local user escalate privilege, cause denial of service, or disclose information. The CVSS scope-change flag (S:C) means the effect reaches past the OS boundary - a root or ring-0 attacker on a GPU host can reach firmware-level state the host OS is supposed to be unable to touch, which undermines any trust an operator places in host attestation or in reimaging a node to clean it. On a GPU fleet this matters most for nodes that are rented out bare metal or re-tenanted between customers: a previous tenant who obtained host privilege could leave persistence that survives a reinstall. The record is the generic Intel SA-00280 wording and does not name a specific firmware module or exploitation path.

Who can reach it

Local, authenticated, and already privileged on the host (root/administrator or equivalent ring-0 access). Not reachable by an unprivileged tenant process or over the network; relevant on bare-metal nodes handed to customers, or as a post-exploitation step after any host-level compromise.

What to do

Apply the OEM BIOS/system-firmware update that carries the Intel 2019.2 IPU microcode and firmware package - Intel does not ship it to end users directly, so the fix arrives as a vendor BIOS release (HPE published emr_na-hpesbhf03967en_us, other OEMs equivalently). This is a firmware flash per node: take the node out of service, flash BIOS, reboot, and verify the firmware version afterwards. There is no runtime mitigation; the only partial control is denying untrusted parties host-privileged access in the first place. This is a 2019 advisory, so most fleets will already be past it - verify the installed BIOS version rather than assuming.

References

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-11137 https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-00280.html https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-hpesbhf03967en_us

This entry is curated: imported from vendor advisories with machine assistance, not yet individually verified. Confirm against your vendor's advisory before acting, and report anything wrong.