Intel reference platforms (Seamless Firmware Updates): A race condition in the seamless firmware update mechanism lets

Impact

A race condition in the seamless firmware update mechanism lets a privileged local user cause denial of service. Seamless update is the feature that is supposed to let you patch platform firmware without a reboot - a bug that turns it into an outage undermines the whole reason operators enable it.

Who can reach it

Privileged local access on the host.

What to do

Platform firmware update from the OEM. Ironically this one does need a conventional drain and reboot to install, since the seamless path is what is broken.

References