January 26, 2021
Device driver additions and modifications since the January 14, 2021 Release.
See Attached: UIU DB-21-01-26 Drivers.pdf
See Attached: Make-Model DB-21-01-26.pdf
Symptoms: Nvidia software security update – ALL GPU product lines Nvidia reported a security issue with their entire catalog of graphics drivers in mid-December 2020, citing, “NVIDIA has released a software security update for NVIDIA® GPU Display Driver. This update addresses issues that may lead to denial of service, escalation of privileges, data tampering, or information disclosure.” (Security Bulletin: NVIDIA GPU Display Driver - January 2021) Resolution: As a consequence, and in an effort to not include drivers known to contain security flaws within the UIU Driver Database, UIU Support has undertaken the extensive effort to not only remove reportedly affected drivers but also to include the new, secured drivers as offered by Nvidia as of January 2021. The UIU Driver Database (release DB-21-01-26) contains only the newly-released drivers from Nvidia and, despite our best efforts, may result in a gap in coverage for select associated hardware IDs. As it is not feasible for Big Bang’s lab to host every conceivable Nvidia product, we’ve attempted to provide coverage for all modern Nvidia product hardware IDs. If it is determined that we’re missing coverage, and Nvidia has provided a secured, newly-released driver, UIU Support will consider it their highest priority to include that driver in the next release of the UIU Driver Database. Your continued patience is appreciated. Furthermore, UIU Support is committed to regularly revisiting Nvidia’s Security Bulletin in an attempt to discover any newly-released drivers post DB-21-01-26 release. NOTE: Compromised Nvidia drivers will continue to exist in established UIU Repositories until UDBs prior to and including DB-21-01-26 are removed and updates are performed with the "cleanup" feature. Please contact UIU Support with questions or concerns. NOTE: Customers may notice a reduction in the size of the UIU Repository depending on configuration and this is expected. Please contact UIU Support with questions or concerns.
Details: Microsoft ended support for the Windows 7 operating system on January 14, 2020. UIU Support has recorded a marked reduction in support requests regarding the deprecated OS and has also reported a distinct lack of Windows 7 drivers offered for newly introduced hardware. As we continue to work on our driver streamlining process, we have noted that Nvidia has elected to not produce secured drivers for Windows 7-based hardware IDs. We have therefore determined that it is an appropriate time to remove Windows 7 from our full driver database release. Two static Windows 7 only driver databases (based on DB-21-01-26) will be made available on demand; one that contains no Nvidia drivers (all previous drivers are presumed to be compromised), and one (based on DB-20-12-29) that contains the Nvidia drivers as represented prior to Nvidia's Security Bulletin: NVIDIA GPU Display Driver - January 2021. Please contact UIU Support for more information. As of this release, no additional Windows 7 drivers will be added to the UIU Driver Database.
Details: UIU Support has recently witnessed several situations wherein updating of firmware addresses specific driver issues. See Release Notes from June 16, 2020 for two examples. UIU Support strongly recommends that, if customers are experiencing issues, the firmware (BIOS/UEFI) be updated immediately. If the target machine continues exhibiting issues, please contact UIU support for additional troubleshooting.
Details: In our continued efforts to provide the most applicable and viable drivers while minimizing UIU Database size, UIU Support has undertaken a periodic review of the drivers represented in our database as of DB-20-07-02. In most cases, drivers that have been removed were not unique and would not have been selected during the minisetup process. This update also addresses the handling of several Microsoft Surface device drivers. If you experience issues, please contact UIU Support.
The full driver database exceeds 17Gb in size (17.7 Gb IMP). Please follow the guidelines below for optimal performance. This database release still covers Windows 7 through Windows 10 (64-bit only).
USB Flash drives need to be formatted with the NTFS file system before the driver database will successfully transfer. Network share access is recommended.
The Big Bang Support Team would like to remind our customers to please clear out any drivers represented in the Custom folder(s) prior to testing with a new version of the UIU Driver Database as neglecting to do so may result in false negative installations. Please contact a UIU Support representative with questions or concerns.