Thunderbolt™ 3 provides the highest bandwidth possible via a USB Type-CTM connection and enables use cases not otherwise possible via a single USB Type-CTM connection. ThunderboltTM connections are capable of direct memory access (DMA) via a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) connection, and Thunderbolt™ ports are the only externally accessible ports on modern PCs that offer this capability.
This white paper discusses the risks associated with USB Type-CTM Thunderbolt™ 3 capable ports and summarizes the mitigations that are available to manage the associated risks. The majority of this paper assumes Windows 10 as the operating system.