Update your Nvidia GPU software now: Here's why
A dozen different vulnerabilities could let hackers take over your machine
If you have an Nvidia graphics card in your PC — as we do — it's time to update the driver and the GeForce Experience (GFE) GPU-management application.
No less than 12 different security vulnerabilities exist in older versions of the driver and the GFE software, says Nvidia in two advisories posted yesterday (Nov. 6). Attackers could use the flaws to steal information, run malicious code, take over the system or stop GPUs from functioning properly.
The saving grace is that most of the attacks would require "local system access," i.e. access to the machine itself or perhaps to a locally networked one.
To make sure your Nvidia GeForce GPU driver is up to date, go to the Nvidia driver download page and either plug in your graphics card's specs or have the page detect the graphics card. You'll be taken to the appropriate page, from which you can download the updated driver, which should have version number 441.12 or later.
To update your GeForce Experience software, go to the GeForce download page and download the patch. It should update your GFE software to version 3.20.1 or later.
Driver patches for Nvidia's professional (Quadro), enterprise (NVS and vGPU) and supercomputer (Tesla) graphics cards and virtualization software aren't all quite ready yet, but should be available the week of Nov. 18.
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Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting around in the information-security space for more than 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random TV news spots and even moderated a panel discussion at the CEDIA home-technology conference. You can follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.