UEFISECUREBOOTINMODERN.PDF

UEFI SECURE BOOT IN MODERN COMPUTER SECURITY SOLUTIONS September 2013 Authors: Richard Wilkins, Ph.D. Phoenix Technologies, Ltd. Dick_Wilkins@ Brian Richardson Intel Corporation Brian.Richardson@ OVERVIEW What is the UEFI Forum? The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Forum is a world-class non-profit industry standards body that works in partnership to enable the evolution of platform technologies. The UEFI Forum champions firmware innovation through industry collaboration and the advocacy of a standardized interface that simplifies and secures platform initialization and firmware bootstrap operations. Both developed and supported by representatives from more than 200 industry-leading technology companies, UEFI specifications promote business and technological efficiency, improve performance and security, facilitate interoperability between devices, platforms and systems, and comply with next-generation technologies. What is UEFI Secure Boot, and how did it originate? UEFI Secure Boot was created to enhance security in the pre-boot environment. UEFI Forum members developed the UEFI specification, an interface framework that affords firmware, operating system and hardware providers a defense against potential malware attacks. Without UEFI Secure Boot, malware developers can more easily take advantage of several pre-boot attack points, including the system-embedded firmware itself, as well as the interval between the firmware initiation and the loading of the operating system. Malware inserted at this point can provide an environment in which an operating system—no matter how secure—cannot run safely. Secure Boot helps firmware, operating system and hardware providers cooperate to thwart the efforts of malware developers. Additional background on the inte