It may be long in the tooth but Nvidia has released a new driver for Kepler architecture GPU owners. The driver fixes 12 vulnerabilities, four of which are classified as 'high' severity. However, there isn't anything else to get excited about, as there are no new features delivered to these ageing GPUs, and any existing non-security related bugs and issues have remained untouched. Nvidia ceased providing Game Ready support for Kepler GPUs in the summer of 2021.
The Nvidia GeForce Security Update Driver v473.47 WHQL is available direct from the linked page, for Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit) users, and weighs in at a smidgeon over 700MB.
With graphics cards being unreasonably priced and in short supply for years, some would say, it is understandable that some PC owners will have held onto Kepler GPUs, especially if they deliver good enough frame rates in the games that they play.
| Kepler Series | Kepler GPU name |
|---|---|
| Titan | GeForce GTX TITAN, GeForce GTX TITAN Black, GeForce GTX TITAN Z |
| GeForce 700 | GeForce GTX 780 Ti, GeForce GTX 780, GeForce GTX 770, GeForce GTX 760, GeForce GTX 760 Ti (OEM), GeForce GT 740, GeForce GT 730, GeForce GT 720, GeForce GT 710 |
| GeForce 600 | GeForce GTX 690, GeForce GTX 680, GeForce GTX 670, GeForce GTX 660 Ti, GeForce GTX 660, GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST, GeForce GTX 650 Ti, GeForce GTX 650, GeForce GTX 645, GeForce GT 640, GeForce GT 635, GeForce GT 630 |
Security Issues Addressed
There are twelve CVE vulnerabilities fixed by the new driver. Four of these vulnerabilities are categorized as being 'high' severity. The remaining eight vulnerabilities are of medium severity. For reference, a CVE score between 7.0 and 8.9 indicates a high severity vulnerability, if between 4.0 and 6.9 it is categorized as medium severity.
Pondering over the four high severity CVEs, all of them appear to give malicious actors on your PC a means to gain admin privileges. Other mischief that these vulnerabilities might allow include; arbitrary code execution, denial of service, information disclosure, and data tampering. One of the vulnerabilities, CVE‑2022‑28182, allows nefarious deeds to be done across a network, but the others require someone to be physically using your PC.
The above isn't the only security update Kepler GeForce users have received this year. Back in February we reported that a GeForce driver 473.04 and 472.98 WHQL patch was delivered by Nvidia to close "multiple security" threats. In short, if you have a Kepler GPU and you know you aren't going to get any Game Ready updates, it is still worth checking for security updates periodically.
With graphics card pricing coming down to much more reasonable levels, Kepler owners could be tempted to ponder over our regularly updated Best Graphics Cards for Gaming in 2022 feature.
