Free Republic

Intel is working to provide the Linux kernel with the ability to allow BIOS updates without a reboot.Certain compute systems require high Service Level Agreements (SLAs) where fewer system reboot firmware updates are required for deploying firmware changes to address bug fixes, security updates, and to debug and root cause issues. Ever since BIOS updates became possible, the process required rebooting the PC.Intel is now changing that, thanks to a new part of the ACPI specification called Platform Firmware Runtime Update and Telemetry (PFRUT). This allows for firmware updates to a PC’s BIOS or UEFI without forcing a reboot. The...

A user in a low level hacking forum has published the phone numbers and personal data of hundreds of millions of Facebook users for free online. The exposed data includes personal information of over 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India. It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and — in some cases — email addresses. Insider reviewed a sample of the leaked data and verified several records by matching known...

A zero-day software vulnerability in the firmware of older Apple computers could be used to slip hard-to-remove malware onto a computer, according to a security researcher. Pedro Vilaca, who studies Mac security, wrote on his blog that the flaw he found builds on previous ones but this one could be far more dangerous. Apple officials could not be immediately reached for comment. Vilaca found it was possible to tamper with an Apple computer's UEFI (unified extensible firmware interface). UEFI is firmware designed to improve upon BIOS, which is low-level code that bridges a computer's hardware and operating system at startup....

It's the one major part of the PC that's still reminiscent of the PC's primordial, text-based beginnings, but the familiarly-clunky BIOS could soon be on its deathbed, according to MSI. The motherboard maker says it's now making a big shift towards point and click UEFI systems, and it's all going to kick off at the end of this year.Speaking to THINQ, a spokesperson for the company in Taiwan who wished to remain anonymous said that "MSI will start to phase in UEFI starting from the end of this year, and we expect it will be widely adopted after three years."...

In many worst case scenarios, a hard drive wipe is the final solution to ridding a system of an infection. But the absolute worst case scenario is if a virus attacks the BIOS, making detection and cleaning an incredible challenge. Viruses that target the BIOS arenÂ’t new, but often they are specific to a type of hardware. Researchers have now demonstrated a new type of attack that could install a rootkit on the BIOS of common systems, making it very lethal and effective. Anibal L. Sacco and Alfredo A. Ortego of Core Security Technologies released a presentation detailing the exploit...

The Flashrom utility is developed by the CoreBoot project (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) as a way to read, write, erase, and verify flash ROM chips. Flashrom has been in development for quite a while (nearly a decade), but now they have finally come out with a version 0.9.0 release and soon expect to reach a 1.0 status. This utility supports nearly every x86 motherboard after having worked on support for over 150 flash chip families (and many various for each family), 75 different chipsets, workarounds for non-standard motherboards, and there is no need for CD-ROM or floppy disk. Previously Linux...

After seven years of work, the LinuxBIOS project is on the brink of making a free BIOS a standard option for computers. Serious obstacles remain, including a lack of resources and resistance from some proprietary chipset manufacturers and OEMs, but the advantages of LinuxBIOS indicate that its availability to the average computer buyer may be only months away. LinuxBIOS is intended to provide a philosophically free replacement for proprietary firmware in chipsets. It consists of the minimal amount of code needed to start a mainboard to the point at which a payload -- an executable capable of starting a kernel,...

With the announcement of the first Intel based Macs yesterday, many users have rejoiced in being able to dual-boot both Mac OS X and Windows. Unfortunately, this is not the case; due to Apple's use of the extensible firmware interface (EFI) rather than BIOS, current Windows releases will not run on the systems. On Tuesday at Macworld, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said the company would not specifically block the use of Windows on Mac hardware. Instead, limitations in Windows itself will prevent its use on the new MacBook Pro laptop and iMac. With...

Help needed. My computer won't boot. It steadily declined. First it started shutting down without notice, when I restarted it it started in safe mode and I didn't find anything wrong. Next reboot I got the message CMOS error. The processor speed, date, and time were all listed wrong in the setup. I corrected the time and the computer would not boot to windows. I reaccessed the setup utility and set the settings to match the ones in the user manual under the bios section. Now the computer won't boot to the basic startup (black screen listing processor, ram, etc...)....

As computer makers move to embed security features deep within the viscera of PCs, a fight is erupting over the BIOS, a rarely noticed but crucial application that controls a machine before the operating system can take over. If the operating system is the equivalent of a computer's brain, then the BIOS, or Basic Input Output System, might be compared to the medula oblongata, the place where the brain meets the spine. The most primitive reflexes are governed here, well below the level of conscious thought. Typically, the BIOS announces its presence on start-up by flashing lights and whirring drives...