Writing an end to the bio of BIOS

[DeadAddict]

Intel and Microsoft are gearing up to move toward the first major overhaul of the innermost workings of the personal computer--the boundary where software and hardware meet--during 2004.
To read more about this http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5131787.html

[el-half]

The EFI specification is essentially a preboot environment that allows a PC to conduct activities such as scanning for viruses or running diagnostics. Intel has used EFI to create a preboot software framework that can supplant the BIOS. The framework, called Platform Innovation Framework for EFI and sometimes referred to by the code name Tiano, allows PC makers to write preboot software modules, which are similar to Windows drivers, designed to get a PC's hardware up and running before handing off control of it to the operating system.

Lol, I think there are more risks for new virii then possibilities to remove them
Pre-boot virii, cool I think the possibilities for these kind of virii will be much greater than they are now for boot-sector virii.

[groovicus]

Just to reiterate your point, el-half, many people think the future of malware will be directed towards the bios, and microcode malware can target the cpu itself. Here's a good link..these two are addressed about 1/3rd of the way down.

http://infosecuritymag.techtarget.co...art406,00.html

And a link to his website:http://www.counterhack.net/

More:

http://www.aplawrence.com/Security/mdexploits.html

[el-half]

Interesting, you're right, you have convinced me.
Thx for the links btw, I never heard about microcode malware.

Cheers

[rcgreen]

There's no doubt in my mind that it's long overdue. This new
preboot software could know and work with the latest hardware.
I'm not sure though, that Microsoft can be trusted to work on such
an important project.

There are "some concerns that it's being used to enable features that customers don't want," he said

...like Digital Rights Management. In fact, DRM will never work unless it is deeply
embedded in fundamental areas like preboot software and the firmware onboard
peripheral devices.

You can bet that Microsoft will be trying to influence next generation "BIOS" design
to keep rival OSs off of future PCs.

[Striek]

I wouldn't worry about microcode malware. All it will do is bring the virus war down from the OS level to the BIOS level. But MS working on this at such an earlyu stage has me worried. I don't even want to think of the nightmares hardware-embedded DRM would cause me.

What I would like to see is a second copy of the BIOS chip that can be mechanically write-protected. Just turn a key on the front of the box and the write pin gets disabled. Keep a known good copy of the BIOS software in there, and if ever the working copy does get infected, you need only to boot from the backup copy and use its program to reflash the working copy, much like keeping a backup image of your OS installation on a disconnected hard drive. This is why floppies haven't died out yet. They can be physically write-protected. Everything else other than CD's requires some sort of write blocker.

One other point - It's about ****in' time. BIOS code is over 20 years old now and is, IMHO, the one single limiting factor facing computers today. It's been hacked and patched and expanded and extended almost to the point where it is incompatible with its own subroutines. A groun-up rewrite is long overdue.

[nihil]

In My Humble Opinion..........the worst virus known to Mankind is a User who has discovered the I/O button?

And ................for you historians..........don't we always switch off the AV protection in BIOS?..it is there already, and has been for years.

Cheers