GPU malware can also affect Windows PCs, possibly Macs

A team of anonymous developers who recently created a Linux rootkit that runs on graphics cards has released a new proof-of-concept malware program that does the same on Windows. A Mac OS X implementation is also in the works.

The developers are trying to raise awareness that malware can infect GPUs and that the security industry is not ready for it. Their goal isn’t to tip off malicious hackers, but the source code they released, while incomplete and buggy by design, could potentially be built upon and used for illegal purposes.

The problem the developers are trying to highlight lies not with the operating systems, such as Windows or Linux, nor with the GPU (graphics processor unit) vendors, but rather with existing security tools, which aren’t designed to scan the random access memory (RAM) used by GPUs for malware code.

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