Potential threat from software that uses WinRing0 drivers (FanCtrl, OpenRGB, Libre Hardware Monitor, etc.)

In the event someone has Windows Defender or antivirus software flag WinRing0 as a hit; there is a long history of WinRing0 and why so many monitoring tools use this driver for system information (fan speed, temp, etc.)

It could be used as a potential attack vector due to it running at the kernel level. It has been used in some Malware in the wild.

Odds are good Open RGB, Libre Hardware Monitor, MSI Afterburner, Razer Synapse, SteelSeries Engine, FanCtrl, ZenTimings, Panorama9, CapFrameX, and others are not being exploited to infect machines.

TL:dr

There is a long article from The Verge that talks about some of the history of this driver and the reason it has been now flagged.

If I remember right the post for “Exploring the Embedded Controller (EC)” talks about using a similar tool to get information from the SMBus.

Essentially, it is an old open source driver that existed and had been signed a long time ago. Getting a newer version that has already been patched according to the article is expensive.

This was talked about in Exploring the Embedded Controller thread a while back too.

Apparently there is the ability to Whitelist things from Windows Defender. Other tools mentioned above the article states, have either removed the functionality that used to get information from this driver or tried to find another solution. One of which (SignalRGB) was to have their own driver developed and signed which was costly.

Be safe out there.

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