The article and the linked NIST page were not specific about the BIOS flaw, but based on Google searches for "bios security flaw," it seems that even the worst

The article and the linked NIST page were not specific about the BIOS flaw, but based on Google searches for "bios security flaw," it seems that even the worst ones (the CompuTrace Lojack flaw and Johanna Rutkowska's Intel flaw) require the attacker to have already compromised the operating system. If an attacker can compromise your computers' OSes, then disabling the hardware is probably the least of your worries. By default, the major PC operating systems follow Ideas 1-3 of the "Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security" ( http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/ http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/d... ) in terms of executables. While you can reconfigure most common OSes not to follow these ideas, most home and business computers will follow the default configuration out of convenience.