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Rog Zephyrus M Gm501gs FirmwareOperating system · Asus

CVE-2019-18216

MEDIUM · 6.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2019-10-20
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
73/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The BIOS configuration design on ASUS ROG Zephyrus M GM501GS laptops with BIOS 313 relies on the main battery instead of using a CMOS battery, which reduces the value of a protection mechanism in which booting from a USB device is prohibited. Attackers who have physical laptop access can exhaust the main battery to reset the BIOS configuration, and then achieve direct access to the hard drive by booting a live USB OS without disassembling the laptop. NOTE: the vendor has apparently indicated that this is "normal" and use of the same battery for the BIOS and the overall system is a "new design." However, the vendor apparently plans to "improve" this an unspecified later time

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

The BIOS on ASUS ROG Zephyrus M GM501GS laptops (BIOS 313) uses the main battery instead of a dedicated CMOS battery to maintain BIOS configuration settings. When the main battery is fully drained, the BIOS resets to default settings, which removes the protection prohibiting boot from USB devices. Attackers with physical access can drain the battery, then boot from a live USB to directly access the hard drive without disassembling the laptop.

MitigationThis is a hardware design flaw with no software patch available; organizations should implement Full Disk Encryption (FDE) with pre-boot authentication and enforce physical security controls to prevent unauthorized access to the device.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Rog Zephyrus M Gm501gs FirmwareOperating system
Affected:all versions

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Physical
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the laptop model
    Check the system model number on the laptop chassis or via system information (run 'systeminfo' on Windows or 'dmidecode -s system-product-name' on Linux)
    Affected if The model is ASUS ROG Zephyrus M GM501GS, as this is the only affected model listed for this CVE
  2. Check BIOS version
    Enter BIOS setup (press Del or F2 at boot) or run 'wmic bios get biosversion' on Windows, 'dmidecode -s bios-version' on Linux
    Affected if The device is the GM501GS model regardless of BIOS version (all versions are affected)
  3. Verify USB boot protection setting
    Enter BIOS setup and navigate to Boot menu; check if 'USB Boot' or 'Boot from USB' is set to Enabled or Disabled
    Affected if USB boot is currently Enabled or set to Allow - the vulnerability allows bypassing this protection when the main battery drains and BIOS resets to defaults
  4. Check for CMOS battery presence
    Physically inspect the motherboard for a coin-cell CMOS battery (CR2032 typical), or check BIOS setup for CMOS battery status/capacity information
    Affected if There is NO dedicated CMOS battery present (the system relies solely on the main laptop battery to maintain BIOS settings)

If the device is an ASUS ROG Zephyrus M GM501GS with no dedicated CMOS battery and USB boot is enabled or was previously protected before a battery-drain event occurred, the environment is affected by this vulnerability.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

This is a hardware design flaw with no software patch available; organizations should implement Full Disk Encryption (FDE) with pre-boot authentication and enforce physical security controls to prevent unauthorized access to the device.

Fix this in Rog Zephyrus M Gm501gs Firmware Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation8.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
22.0 hours of engineering $3,940
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-18216 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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