Intel Alder Lake BIOS source code leaks

Somehow, it looks like Intel's source code for Alder Lake has leaked online. The 12th Gen CPUs launched in late 2021 and now, someone has reportedly got their hands on the source code to Intel's BIOS, weighing in at about 6GB. 

The leak was first reported by vx-underground, which claims the compressed code is about 2.8GB, expanding to 5.86GB after decompression. The leak was spotted this month, and Intel has confirmed it is aware of it in a statement to Tom's Hardware.

The source code to the Intel Alder Lake BIOS*** has been leaked online.

Even with the ability to edit tweets we make typos. tl;dr Tweeting is hard work and serious business. pic.twitter.com/E6c2A1mlxT

— vx-underground (@vxunderground) October 8, 2022

Due to the sheer size of the code, no one has yet confirmed what secrets lie within it. Intel also stated it doesn't “believe this exposes any new security vulnerabilities as [it does] not rely on obfuscation of information as a security measure” but encourages anyone that may find potential vulnerabilities to report them via the Project Circuit Breaker campaign.

Some people analysing the code have found some mentions of a “Lenovo Feature Tag Test”, suggesting the OEM was the source of the leak. Mark Ermolov, an Intel platform security researcher, confirmed the code includes MSRs (interface to microcode not present in public documentation) for the newest CPU, still under NDA. Moreover, the Intel engineer stated that the private signing key used for Intel's Boot Guard was also leaked in the code, possibly making the feature unsafe to use.

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KitGuru says: The code was initially shared on GitHub but that was quickly taken down as Intel works on securing the leak. We have yet to see the full extent of the damage, so we'll have to wait and see what specialists find while combing through the leaked files over the next week. 

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