[coreboot] LinuxBIOS/coreboot and security

Torsten Duwe duwe at lst.de
Thu Jan 31 11:44:57 CET 2008


On Wednesday 30 January 2008, Corey Osgood wrote:

> I think what he was trying to say is that if you give coreboot, say, a FILO
> payload set up to boot from some medium, with no support for any other
> medium, then there's no switch you can throw, short of flashing a new bios
> onto the board.

Exactly. With FILO or grub2 as payload you can enforce the loading of a kernel 
from disk with specified arguments. This will also allow (re-) installation 
after entering a password. This is secure until someone uses a screwdriver 
and opens the case.

You can use the TPM (if you have one) then. This is secure until someone uses 
a soldering iron.

You can manufacture your own fully integrated chips with TPMs. These will be 
secure until someone uses the on-chip equivalent of a soldering iron:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/sc99-tamper.pdf

And so on, and so on...
How much time and money are you willing to spend?

	Torsten




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