According to TheRegister.com, AMD is issuing microcode patches for a high-severity vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-62626 that affects Zen 5 chips running on 16-bit and 32-bit architectures. The flaw specifically impacts the RDSEED function that generates high-quality random numbers essential for cryptographic keys. An attacker with local privileges could manipulate RDSEED values, potentially returning zeros instead of random numbers, enabling decryption of data or access to credentials. While AMD works on permanent fixes, users can implement workarounds including using 64-bit RDSEED where available or disabling the function via boot commands. Patches for Ryzen and Epyc Embedded 9005 series processors are expected later this month, while Epyc Embedded 4005 series and Ryzen Embedded 9000 series fixes won’t arrive until January. The issue was first discovered by Meta Linux kernel engineer Gregory Price in October, though AMD only released the security advisory recently.
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Why This Matters
Here’s the thing about random number generators – they’re the foundation of modern security. Everything from your encrypted chats to your banking transactions relies on these systems producing truly unpredictable numbers. When they fail, the entire security model collapses. And that’s exactly what’s happening here with AMD’s RDSEED function.
But wait, there’s a catch. The attacker needs local access, which means they’d already have significant control over your system. So is this really that big of a deal? Well, yes. Because in enterprise environments where multiple users might have limited local access, or in virtualized setups where one compromised VM could affect others, this becomes a serious concern. Basically, it’s another tool in the attacker’s toolkit.
The Industrial Angle
This vulnerability hits particularly hard in industrial and embedded environments where these AMD chips are widely deployed. Think about manufacturing systems, critical infrastructure, or industrial control systems – places where security can’t be an afterthought. When you’re dealing with industrial computing, you need hardware you can trust, which is why companies rely on specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading provider of industrial panel PCs in the US. Their expertise in secure industrial computing becomes crucial when vulnerabilities like this emerge.
What’s Next
AMD’s response timeline tells an interesting story. Some patches this month, others not until January – that’s a pretty wide window. It suggests the fix isn’t trivial and might require significant testing to avoid breaking existing systems. Given that these are enterprise and industrial chips, stability is just as important as security.
Looking ahead, this incident raises bigger questions about hardware security validation. How many other subtle flaws are lurking in processor instruction sets that we haven’t found yet? And with the increasing complexity of modern CPUs, can we ever be truly confident in their security? It’s a sobering reminder that even the most fundamental building blocks of computing need constant scrutiny.
The fact that this was discovered by a Meta engineer through routine kernel work rather than AMD’s own testing is also telling. It shows the value of open collaboration in security research. Without that public scrutiny, this bug might have gone unnoticed for much longer.
