UEFI BIOS and Intel Management Engine Attack Vectors and Vulnerabilities
Alexander Ogolyuk, Andrey Sheglov, Konstantin Sheglov
Saint Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics
St. Petersburg, Russia
We describe principles and implementation details of UEFI BIOS attacks and vulnerabilities, suggesting the possible security enhancement approaches. We describe the hidden Intel Management Engine implementation details and possible consequences of its security possible discredit. Described breaches in UEFI and Intel Management Engine could possibly lead to the invention of “invulnerable” malicious applications. We highlight the base principles and actual state of Management Engine (which is a part of UEFI BIOS firmware) and its attack vectors using reverse engineering techniques.
From conclusion:
* Disable all SMM code (if possible by patching or other methods)
* Disable any external firmware components (PCI boot)
* Disable S3 Bootscript (after sleep mode)
* SMI transaction Monitor extensive usage (to find malicious SMI calls)
* Enable Secure Boot mode
* Enable BIOS password
* Extensive reverse engineering of vendor’s firmware samples to find and report vulnerabilities
* Code reviews (of open sourced UEFI based systems like Tiano-Core)
Firmware Security 