Nvidia recently released new graphics drivers – for contemporary GPUs and its older graphics cards, too – and we now know all about the security flaws these drivers fix.
Tom’s Hardware spotted the new security bulletin from Nvidia which outlines the threats posed to owners of Team Green’s GPUs. After the release of its latest graphics driver last week, Nvidia informed us that it would issue an update on the exact vulnerabilities in play here, and it has now done so.
They include two threats to Windows users rated with a ‘high’ severity, both of which can be exploited to leverage code execution (running malicious processes on your PC) and all sorts of other nastiness. There’s also a third ‘high’ rated threat, but that’s aimed at Linux users, not Windows.
On top of this, there’s a trio of other potential exploits rated with a ‘medium’ severity, which still represent worrying threats to your computer, if not in the same league as the aforementioned vulnerabilities.
How do you defend yourself? You need to update to Nvidia’s 551.61 Game Ready Driver (which launched a week ago, alongside the new Nvidia App), and you can download it here.
Also, those on much older Nvidia graphics cards – GTX 700 or 600 series GPUs – must download a separate security patch, driver update 474.82, to protect themselves. And there’s another update, version 474.89, for those running out-of-date Windows installations, namely Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1.
All of those can be grabbed from the above Nvidia download portal, just enter the details of your graphics card and OS, and you’ll be presented with the correction version to download.
Analysis: Extra effort
Generally speaking, one of the reasons it’s important to stay updated to the latest driver (or any software release) is because it patches vulnerabilities like these, and this is most certainly true for Nvidia’s new driver. Don’t hang around grabbing this new release, in short.
It’s good to see Nvidia shoring up security for older GPUs too, and indeed older – out of support – operating systems from Microsoft. Team Green doesn’t officially support those cards or OSes any longer, so it’s an extra effort the firm didn’t have to make.
That said, if you’re running one of those operating systems – Windows 7 or 8 – you really need to upgrade to Windows 10 or 11 at this point (or one of the best Linux alternatives, perhaps, if you don’t want to fork out money). As you’re facing a whole lot more potential pain and vulnerabilities than those your Nvidia GPU exposes you to, what with Microsoft not updating these systems any longer.
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