Grub Legacy 0.97 and earlier stores pre-boot authentication passwords in the BIOS Keyboard buffer and does not clear this buffer before and after use, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information by reading the physical memory locations associated with this buffer.

References

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2008-3896
• http://securityreason.com/securityalert/4204
• http://securityreason.com/securityalert/4206
• http://www.ivizsecurity.com/preboot-patch.html
• http://www.ivizsecurity.com/research/preboot/preboot_whitepaper.pdf
• http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/495726/100/0/threaded