Good thing i don't use BIOS anymore, long live UEFI.

lol i really hope your were being sarcastic

This affects UEFI.....not the old, outdated BIOS system, which actually had mechanisms to prevent such attacks. You should really re-read the OP....

Exactly... Which means I'm safe. Got one of the last pre UEFI gen Gigabyte Motherboards.

Sweet malware for bios that almost never kept updated by the endusers, and the manufactures all but stop updating them after about 3 years or so??. there hasnt been update for my BIOS since 2011 then again I one those users that dont update bios unless there reason to, updating bios is more risky then update software. Then again maybe that all changed since the UEFI bios which i dont really like but they sure do boot faster then the old bios, atlest pre windows loading stuff is much faster. My pre UEFI bios are safe expect for possible my sisters 2014 ASus laptop. which is 300$ pos that less powerful then my duo core 8400e system i gave to my dad. but better then the pos 1500$ broke sony laptop her bf gave her that he knew was broke too. I stand by the saying newer dont mean better just means newer, this newer tech can be worse and apparently less secure too now hah

UEFI is only "safe" if you enable SecureBoot, and the malware is trying to modify UEFI prior to Windows load. If it can modify UEFI from within Windows, there's nothing to protect UEFI systems. At least the old BIOS had a write-protect mechanism to prevent modifications/updates to the BIOS without entering the BIOS and manually changing the setting.

At least the old BIOS had a write-protect mechanism to prevent modifications/updates to the BIOS without entering the BIOS and manually changing the setting.

There was an exception which we used in my old job, a little DOS tool called "cmospwd-5.0" which would allow you to reset the BIOS from Windows, removing passwords etc - useful for laptops with either a very difficult to get to or permanently soldered to the board CMOS battery Not really a modification/update, but allowed a reset without entering BIOS

I just follow the general rule of "if it ain't broken, don't fcking touch it", since you know, updating a bios is not without risks.

Can work. I prefer "patch it before it breaks". I'm even regularly checking the firmware on my devices.

Hi guys, sorry i am really noob to this uefi and new systems. I didnt build this system, and didnt install main OS either. Have win7 and win8.1(installed later) dual boot. Asus Z87-Deluxe with 1405 Bios I looked msinfo32 and found only 2 lines about bios. http://i.imgur.com/bEEfx7e.png http://i.imgur.com/l3awDid.png And i gone to bios and searched secure boot option, it was saying "Enabled", and security Key "loaded" (not sure exact option name). All two options grayed out. And below there is another option that takes me to KEY options. Am i safe now? Thanks. edit: learned how to take bios screenshot, so here are the images of those options. And i saw that my main SSD win7 OS is not labeled as UEFI at main bios screen. After inserting my USB stick i saw UEFI label on it , but not on main SSD. http://i.imgur.com/oZcdeoL.png http://i.imgur.com/B1xZz9m.png http://i.imgur.com/klSBJbD.png

An unpatched BIOS can easily be infected with malware or a virus!!!!!

ASUS eeproms are write protected and only accept digitally signed images. No signature, no flash. Not exactly easy?

Motherboards from companies like Gigabyte, Acer, MSI, HP and Asus are at risk, especially if you are not updating your BIOS on a regular basis towards the latest revision!!!!! (and let's be frank here, who does ?).

Lets be realistic: prob the majority of users who just read the alarmist content above. To be brutally honest the standard of "news" here seems to have been slipping recently. I've seen at least 3 subbed articles which come across as sensationalist and misleading....similar to Tabloid journalism. A while back there was an article published stating Samsung firmware was "bricking" SSD's this based on a single post in some other forum and the drive was not even bricked: Misleading, sensationalist. Another onecame from TechReport I think, screaming about Seagate HDD failure rates based on that inconclusive Backblaze article. . I have no idea who's publishing this stuff but please take some constructive criticism and consider using more discretion with what constitutes as news, even if it is just subbed material. Thanks.

Last security report was on HDD which have backdoors in their firmware, now this. As it is, it's only a theory and speculation nothing to be alarmed about. By the time this malware becoms a real risk most mobo manufacturers will have safety measures implemented. Or so we'd like to think.

Exactly... Which means I'm safe. Got one of the last pre UEFI gen Gigabyte Motherboards.

NO UEFI for me right now on my main rig. But second one is a AsRock 970 Extreme4 and its UEFI. Kinda took a little bit used to getting used before I oced the FX 8120 in it. They latest bios for it is from Nov 2013.

ASUS eeproms are write protected and only accept digitally signed images. No signature, no flash. Not exactly easy?

You used to be able to use unsigned images by flashing the system using USB Flashback, but I think they eventually patched it out. At the same time if you were to try and inject malware into the system using that feature you'd have physically be at the machine. So I'd think Asus boards are pretty safe from this?

So any way to detect it? I'm guessing the virus won't show itself when you dump the uefi from an infected machine to a file, so it will be hard to detect it from a running machine with active 'virus'...

So any way to detect it? I'm guessing the virus won't show itself when you dump the uefi from an infected machine to a file, so it will be hard to detect it from a running machine with active 'virus'...

Id imagine comparing the HASH of an infected file vs the original will show a different hash on the infected one

Security logic tells me that nothing is secure,there are just levels of it. More,there will always be the coflict between convenience and security.OEM offers just that,convenience,screw the average Jimmy who tinkers with his computer. And when disaster strikes,just use the oldest trick in the book,by putting the blame on others.

Mine (F10) is from September 5th 2014 which is the latest. Guess it needs an update aswell.

You used to be able to use unsigned images by flashing the system using USB Flashback, but I think they eventually patched it out. At the same time if you were to try and inject malware into the system using that feature you'd have physically be at the machine. So I'd think Asus boards are pretty safe from this?

Yes, exactly. 🙂 Even without digital signing the image had to be original, meaning oproms can be inserted but nothing modified/injected (my understanding at least). But Eeproms programmed with Aptio V (X99) are now signed with an AMI keycode. In order to flash a malicious image you would quite literally need to be standing at the machine with a hardware SPI flasher in your hand. So yeah...I think we can relax for now. lol

I just follow the general rule of "if it ain't broken, don't fcking touch it", since you know, updating a bios is not without risks.

Same here, im still running the 1004 BIOS on mine, theres 2x newer, but its working fine.

Hi guys, sorry i am really noob to this uefi and new systems. I didnt build this system, and didnt install main OS either. Have win7 and win8.1(installed later) dual boot. Asus Z87-Deluxe with 1405 Bios I looked msinfo32 and found only 2 lines about bios. http://i.imgur.com/bEEfx7e.png http://i.imgur.com/l3awDid.png And i gone to bios and searched secure boot option, it was saying "Enabled", and security Key "loaded" (not sure exact option name). All two options grayed out. And below there is another option that takes me to KEY options. Am i safe now? Thanks. edit: learned how to take bios screenshot, so here are the images of those options. And i saw that my main SSD win7 OS is not labeled as UEFI at main bios screen. After inserting my USB stick i saw UEFI label on it , but not on main SSD. http://i.imgur.com/oZcdeoL.png http://i.imgur.com/B1xZz9m.png http://i.imgur.com/klSBJbD.png

UEFI really didn't take off until a good while after Win7 shipped, and from what you say here it appears you have a standard bios and do not have a UEFI system. (Pay no attention to the UEFI markings on your USB stick--that's just advertising...;)) The main point to UEFI is the secure-boot function, which was designed to stop viruses and other malware that were getting into bioses and systems ahead of the operating system at boot time--before the OS AV components could act to eradicate it. Coming in under the OS like that a nasty bit of software could actually take over a machine without having to go through the OS at all--and secure-boot UEFI eliminates that possibility (pretty much) and because it's a program accessible to the OS that means that any OS-resident AV software can see right down through the UEFI--and if it spots a nasty can act to kill it from the OS level after the system boots. The older, standard bios has no protection during boot and if something gets into the bios it probably wouldn't allow itself to be flashed out of existence, so the only way to fix it would be to pop in a new bios chip. Chances of ordinary people running into something like this even with a standard bios is very remote. This is the kind of thing you see in a targeted attack, usually espionage at the corporate level. But even there it is not at all common--at least as far as detection goes...;)

So yeah...I think we can relax for now. lol

I wasn't worried any way. They made a huge deal about "BIOS virus" more than a decade ago, and how many were actually found "in the wild" since then? The only ones I know, were created by "security" companies and never released onto the web. They also required physical access to the system.

We've survived this long, so...........