Ever since Intel’s 6 series chipset, it has been required for manufacturers to make use of UEFI based firmware for OS loading. UEFI Secure Boot has rarely been adopted because of its compatibility issues with many hardware devices due to their lack of official signatures which are approved by Microsoft. There has been a controversy on the use of UEFI Secure Boot ever since, as a requirement for UEFI Secure Boot even though improve boot security to a great extend, eradicating malicious boot loader and hardware driver codes from being executed, it also locks down users to only use Microsoft UEFI approved Windows Boot Loader. Currently, only Windows 8 and Windows 7 64bit supports UEFI Secure Boot.
Just recently, Linux Foundation has got their approved signature for UEFI Secure Boot. It’s a huge step forward for the implementation of Secure Boot Technology. Previously, Linux users who wanted the security advantages of UEFI Secure Boot only can make use of a Shim bootloader.
To find out more about the technicalities of Linux Foundation’s official bootloader for Windows 8 hardware(which consists of almost all the current day hardware), visit http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/23113.html . Besides, do look out for a upcoming technical article explaining UEFI and Secure Boot.
