Nvidia's 376.33 drivers beef up security and stomp out YouTube bug

Most of the time when there is a new driver release by Nvidia or AMD there are specific games that have been optimized for performance and stability. That is not the case this time around. Nvidia's latest WHQL driver release, version 376.33, is primarily aimed at making things more secure all around. "This version adds several security improvements," Nvidia states in the release notes.

One of those security improvements is a registry bug that could allow malicious software to gain administrator level access in Windows 7 and Windows 8/8/1. That alone is reason enough to install this latest driver release, though if you're wary of updating drivers so soon after release, give it a day or two to see if anyone complains of unusual behavior.

Either way, here are the fixes listed in the release notes for Windows 10:

  • Install the Display Container via co-installer.
  • Corruption in YouTube video playback when two or more videos are playing at the same time.
  • Clean up the escape calls that use physical addresses.
  • Install the Display Container via co-installer.
  • NV-ESC-ID_NVAPI_REPORT_WFD_HOTPLUG and NV_ESC_ID_NVAPI_ENUM_DISPLAYIDS_EX don't validate the size of input, causing a KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE.
  • Clean up the escape calls that use physical addresses.
  • CNVL_ESC_ID_COMMON_REGISTRY_ACCESS escalates user privileges when the registry is accessed.

And here are the fixes for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1:

  • Install the Display Container via co-installer.
  • NV-ESC-ID_NVAPI_REPORT_WFD_HOTPLUG and NV_ESC_ID_NVAPI_ENUM_DISPLAYIDS_EX don't validate the size of input, causing a KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE.
  • Clean up the escape calls that use physical addresses.
  • CNVL_ESC_ID_COMMON_REGISTRY_ACCESS escalates user privileges when the registry is accessed.mpty list

The only other notable change this driver package brings is it disables the SLI profile for Titanfall 2.

You can grab the new drivers here.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).