December 20, 2007 (Computerworld) -- The hacker who posted an exploit last week that threatened a large swath of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s laptop lineup followed up yesterday with new attack code that can "brick" nearly every HP laptop.
In a post to the milw0rm.com Web site Wednesday, a Polish security researcher who used the alias "porkythepig" spelled out a pair of vulnerabilities in an ActiveX control used by HP's Software Update, the patch management program bundled with virtually every HP- and Compaq-branded laptop.
According to porkythepig's post, the Software Update bugs let an attacker corrupt Windows' kernel files, making the laptop unbootable, or with a little more effort, allow hacks that would result in a PC hijack or malware infection. In either case, a drive-by attack could be conducted by feeding users an e-mail message with a link to a malicious Web site.
