Two security researchers have claimed there is a major security flaw in the
way Windows 7 interacts with the hardware of its host machine. They argue it
could be extremely difficult to fix the issue.
The problem involves Direct Memory Access. That’s a computer feature by which
part of the chipset on the motherboard is able to directly access the computer’s
memory. The main advantage of doing so is that data can be transferred from one
device to another without needing to be routed through the CPU and soaking up
processing power.
Christophe Devine and Damien Aumaitre from Sogeti/ESEC have said that the way
the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 uses DMA could be manipulated to allow a hacker
to access the computer’s memory and thus run malicious software.
