I understand LUKs can be used to encrypt your data. But what would prevent somebody plug in a USB with and just wipe my drive?
On traditional BIOS like Lenovo, HP, Dell and even Framework you can set a supervisor password that locks the boot menu. So nobody can boot from the USB.
Coreboot is different though. I spoke with Starlabs whose computers run Coreboot, and apparently you can have the boot menu password. OTOH, Sys76’s Coreboot doesnt allow such things.
I ask because i want to libreboot my T480, but the number 1 thing i worry is unauthorized USB boot.
This one: https://libreboot.org/docs/linux/grub_hardening.html#grub-password
seems to only lock the ability to edit the grub entry freely, aka press “e” to change stuff when grub fails to boot.
Imo any attacker that has access to the hardware cannot be countered by software. There always is a badusb or sodder this here chip type attack possible against any attempt at locking up your pc.
You can encrypt and backup, but any legends about tpm, bios passwords, weird hardware encryption features and keys are moot once an attacker can read what transits on the pcie or memory bus
Disable the boot menu and set a password on your UEFI before considering Libreboot.
Nothing will prevent him from wiping your drive if he has physical access to your device.
Sure you can use stuff like Secure Boot with your own custom keys to lock it. Then noone can indeed just boot it.
Doesn’t stop that person from removing your drive and plugging it into another pc. Or from just smashing your disk to pieces.
The same goes for stuff like a bios password. With physical access you can wipe that, too. It’s just a bit more work (or requires additional tools) than just an USB stick.
In short: Yes, you can stop someone from just booting an USB stick and wipe you drive. But it doesn’t matter if he has other ways to do the same. Protection only works as a whole concept, Software won’t help you when physical security allows the device to be stolen. And seriously? Who cares if their stolen is wiped, smashed or drowning on the bottom of the ocean. It’s gone anyway.
The actual protection for data is a) backups so you don’t lose them and b) encryption so nobody can read them.
why assume the attacker is a guy?
Because the fictious person stealing your laptop and drilling through your disk to erase it identifies as male. I have a whole backstory worked out if you are interested…
Or because it doesn’t matter at all and two letters were simply the shortest.
There can be multiple reasons:
- Commenter just had a slip up and thought of it as a masculine profession which is fine. It does happen.
- Commenter’s first language is not English. Czech for example doesn’t use they/them for a single person unless it is neo-pronouns. So instead we just gender based on word of a profession, which is 99% of the time masculine. Only exception that comes to mind is a nurse which translates to homonym of sister. There are also feminine suffixes for jobs but that is only used if you know that the person who works it uses feminine pronouns or if the field is heavily dominated by women but then it is a prejudice.
how would you suggest to point this out to someone given what you said? (are you ok with people referring to all teachers as she or her since most teachers are women? seems like that would be annoying for men who teach)
Why assume masculine pronouns inherently refer to a guy? /s
Funnily a lot of people consider “guy” as gender neutral nowadays…
what do you mean?
Yep. Physical access is equivalent to ownership. The only reasonable thing you can do to protect against it is to prevent access. Given enough time and physical access, any system can be compromised. Encryption is the only good prevention from them reading the data, but it isn’t foolproof, and backups are the only good way to ensure you can access the data after.
I’m not sure I follow why this would be a big concern. If your drive is encrypted the worst they can do is wipe your data, which would require restoring a backup image. A hassle but it won’t give them access to your data.
Technically you would also want to encrypt your RAM. But that’s depending on your threat model.
Not sure if I’m helping here. But sounds this could also be a X/Y problem… The way to make sure you don’t lose data is backups, not something else. I mean your SSD could as well die. Or someone doesn’t boot something, but steal the entire device…
Just here for the comments, since I know of no way to disallow booting from removable media. Although I did recently come across a modern Lenovo laptop whose BIOS simply lacked the menu entry to switch boot order, boot device and anything like that…
since I know of no way to disallow booting from removable media.
newer bios’es give you the option of locking usb boot from behind a supervisor password.
– meaning that you have to give the supervisor bios password if you want to boot from usb.
Reading the comments makes me wonder why BIOS passwords were even invented.
Sounds like everyone is saying its a waste of time and to never use it if the biis supports it.
BIOS boot passwords were from another era with different needs and assumptions. In controlled access environments they can still have an impact if you have a proper chassis that has locks on it preventing removal of drives. Most normal people don’t possess such business class chassis. The scenario was a business environment with security teams, other employees, supervisors and locks that while you could cut them with heavy equipment you’d be noticed doing so. In terms of preventing a team of thieves breaking in with power tools and stealing things true it never was meant to prevent that. It’s more authorization and access control within an organization. The idea being perhaps the CEO’s machine or a special machine for accessing sensitive devices would be physically locked and have such a password installed as another layer of security that couldn’t be bypassed surreptitiously.
Additionally back in the day these BIOS boot passwords were paired with chassis intrusion alarms which went off every subsequent boot if the chassis was opened thanks to a sensor and the only way to clear that alarm was logging into the BIOS with an admin password.
Your gaming computer BIOS supports neither of these nor does your gaming motherboard have a chassis intrusion connector nor does your gaming case come with support for such a device.
But it was never about preventing data destruction even in these cases. It was more preventing access and making any such access more time consuming and likely to trip alarms to allow a response including evaluation of compromise by professionals.
If you want to protect your data make backups. If you want it well protected against determined parties who want to destroy all copies and/or thieves then locate a copy off-premises. If you can’t do that at least locate a copy within a bolted down safe.
If someone has physical access to your laptop, can’t just turn it on and spill a glass of water on it?
Setting a BIOS password doesn’t really do much good. Someone can just unplug the CMOS battery and the password will be cleared. Even if it was stored in flash, it could be removed by erasing it with a flash programmer and flashing a new BIOS.
