this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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I remember warning labels on BIOS updates that basically said that if nothing is broken, don't do the update because the risk of bricking the device did not outweigh any potential benefits. That vendors are now pushing mandatory BIOS updates through Windows Update is terrifying.
When I heard that BIOS updates were going out automatically via Windows update I had just assumed the devices in question must be using an A/B update scheme to prevent the risk of accidentally bricking the system, because obviously they should.
Absolutely insane that's not the case.
Why can even touch bios from system? That sound like horrible attack vector. If can infect bios, no reformat or reinstall will remove virus.
You're not touching BIOS from the system. The software just downloads a cryptographically singed binary and reboots into BIOS. Then BIOS checks if the file is ok and proceeds to flash itself.
attack vetor if the person has physical access to your device, or the bios connect to the internet, at that point fuck it
No meant like if can infect system, could touch bios and infect, so make virus stay forever.
Which sound horrible.
Also Intel ME can connect to internet and is below BIOS. Agree, fuck it.
They really, really, should be doing A/B systems. Or just have an absolutely minimum loader that can load from EPROM/flash or USB so when the system storage gets messed up, you can still launch the updater from USB. That bios loader doesn't need to know more than how to talk to storage and shovel bytes to the CPU, maybe blink a LED, it's simple enough to be able to be actual ROM, never needing to be updated.
Wait, no: SD cards can talk SPI... it's not going to be fast but it's only a few megs anyway. The EPROM or Flash you're using probably speaks SPI, already. You could literally make a system which can load the BIOS from SD card for the cost of a card cage and maybe a jumper. You could have gigabytes of bios storage for three bucks by using off the shelf cheap SD cards, forget A/B storage you could do the whole bloody alphabet and people could replace the thing easily.
Here's some extra fun: there's a decent chance that you only need a cable with JST or DuPont connectors. I've seen a fair number of laptop motherboards with unused SPI headers/connectors just hanging out. My understanding being that they're for possible accessories or, literally for flashing/debugging the bios.