Vulnerabilities in Dell and HP laptops could allow an attacker to access information and gain kernel privileges via the devices Direct Memory Access (DMA) capability. The manufacturers have issued BIOS updates to address the issues, but researchers warn DMA attacks are likely possible against a range of laptops and desktops. DMA is a processing-efficiency approach for peripherals (such as PCI cards or network interface cards) that offers direct high-speed access to a system s memory.
Source: https://threatpost.com/dell-hp-memory-access-bugskernel-privileges/152369/