https://r1.ieee.org/njcoast/CSCSP-wilkinsabstract/
UEFI system firmware, Secure Boot and the current attack landscape in the pre-OS environment
Dick Wilkins, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Thomas College, Maine
For the past few years, there has been a movement underway to update PC firmware from the legacy BIOS de facto standard from the 1970’s to a modern approach, initially developed by Intel, called the Extensible Firmware Interface standard. This design was contributed to open source and is now managed by the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface forum (UEFI) with 250+ member companies. Since the advent of Windows 8.0, this firmware design has been required for most PC’s, many tablets and servers and increasingly, other mobile devices like phones. As the new standard, the interface and its “secure boot” feature, has become the target of security researchers and hackers alike. If it can be breached, no system is safe from hackers as it could be compromised before any malware protection software or secure operating system can be loaded. This talk will provide some background on UEFI firmware, its motivations and features, secure boot specifically, as well and the status of attacks on actual implementations and what is being done about them. It will also report on a new Security Response Team being put in place by the UEFI forum to respond expeditiously to reported threats against system firmware across many hardware platforms.