Google NERF looks interesting, they keep UEFI’s PI but replace the UEFI layers with Linux kernel, and the code is written in Go. Looks like they’re focusing on removing dynamic code in UEFI and SMM. Unclear about their position towards dynamic code in ACPI, as well as PCIe (eg, PCIleech-style attacks).
The slides from the recent North American OSS presentation are online, but I can’t find the video online:
Click to access Linuxcon%202017%20NERF.pdf
There’s an upcoming European OSS event upcoming:
Replace Your Exploit-Ridden Firmware with Linux
Ronald Minnich, Google
With the WikiLeaks release of the vault7 material, the security of the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware used in most PCs and laptops is once again a concern. UEFI is a proprietary and closed-source operating system, with a codebase almost as large as the Linux kernel, that runs when the system is powered on and continues to run after it boots the OS (hence its designation as a “Ring -2 hypervisor”). It is a great place to hide exploits since it never stops running, and these exploits are undetectable by kernels and programs. Our answer to this is NERF (Non-Extensible Reduced Firmware), an open source software system developed at Google to replace almost all of UEFI firmware with a tiny Linux kernel and initramfs. The initramfs file system contains an init and command line utilities from the u-root project (http://u-root.tk/), which are written in the Go language.
https://osseu17.sched.com/event/ByYt/replace-your-exploit-ridden-firmware-with-linux-ronald-minnich-google
https://ossna2017.sched.com/event/BCsr/replace-your-exploit-ridden-firmware-with-linux-ronald-minnich-google
https://osseu17.sched.com/event/ByYt/replace-your-exploit-ridden-firmware-with-linux-ronald-minnich-google
http://u-root.tk/
https://github.com/u-root/u-root
Firmware Security 