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I was of the impression that BIOS passwords were in general not something one should rely even as a layer when assuming physical access. In the (not that) old d

I was of the impression that BIOS passwords were in general not something one should rely even as a layer when assuming physical access. In the (not that) old days it was usually just a matter of removing the internal battery to reset it. Has this assumption changed in past years?

unnouinceput 7y ago
A bit, as posted in this blog, but for most part having physical unlimited access to a device it's game over. Hence why encrypting your sensitive data should be the norm (I am aware that is not the norm, not by far)
- Legogris 7y ago
  Sure, it's just that the only situation I see a BIOS password making sense is in the presence of some intrusion-detection mechanism that would perform some kind of destruction/lockdown/alarm so that attempting to bypass it would not be without consequences.
  - tomlong 7y ago
    They are good for stopping people fiddling in large scale corporate deployments where someones nephew knows how to make the work laptop go faster.
- rekoil 7y ago
  Depends on your definition of encrypted I suppose. Many laptop SSDs are technically encrypted by default, but unless otherwise specified use a default key to unlock the drive. Sure, they are still not encrypted in any meaningful sense by default, but the barrier to entry is quite far removed by not requiring a long process to enable it. A process which sometimes would require reinstallation, something an average person would likely not bother with. While installing macOS Catalina the user gets prompted to activate this encryption, providing the system has a disk that supports that kind of full disk encryption I mentioned above.
  - oneplane 7y ago
    Catalina doesn't use in-SSD encryption. You either get T2 encryption or FDE via software (FileVault2) which is slower but not disk-dependant either.
numpad0 7y ago
Still only as secure as cheap padlocks, but battery backed RAMs were replaced with flash, and location for BIOS passwords keeps changing to different locations so not the simple matter of removing the battery anymore.
k1t 7y ago
I think it's a desktop vs laptop thing. Desktop BIOS is easy to reset by shorting the right jumper/pins, but laptops were made more complicated because they are easier to steal.

unnouinceput 7y ago

A bit, as posted in this blog, but for most part having physical unlimited access to a device it's game over. Hence why encrypting your sensitive data should be the norm (I am aware that is not the norm, not by far)

Legogris 7y ago
Sure, it's just that the only situation I see a BIOS password making sense is in the presence of some intrusion-detection mechanism that would perform some kind of destruction/lockdown/alarm so that attempting to bypass it would not be without consequences.
- tomlong 7y ago
  They are good for stopping people fiddling in large scale corporate deployments where someones nephew knows how to make the work laptop go faster.
rekoil 7y ago
Depends on your definition of encrypted I suppose. Many laptop SSDs are technically encrypted by default, but unless otherwise specified use a default key to unlock the drive. Sure, they are still not encrypted in any meaningful sense by default, but the barrier to entry is quite far removed by not requiring a long process to enable it. A process which sometimes would require reinstallation, something an average person would likely not bother with. While installing macOS Catalina the user gets prompted to activate this encryption, providing the system has a disk that supports that kind of full disk encryption I mentioned above.
- oneplane 7y ago
  Catalina doesn't use in-SSD encryption. You either get T2 encryption or FDE via software (FileVault2) which is slower but not disk-dependant either.

numpad0 7y ago

Still only as secure as cheap padlocks, but battery backed RAMs were replaced with flash, and location for BIOS passwords keeps changing to different locations so not the simple matter of removing the battery anymore.

k1t 7y ago

I think it's a desktop vs laptop thing. Desktop BIOS is easy to reset by shorting the right jumper/pins, but laptops were made more complicated because they are easier to steal.