Unified Extensible Firmware Interface: Security solution for modern computer secure boot

� With the use of the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) for servers extending over three decades, the need for a new firmware interface that is designed for today’s operating systems and hardware architectures is necessary. Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a firmware interface between an operating system and platform firmware designed to replace Legacy BIOS interface. In general, UEFI has many technical advantages over Legacy BIOS (pre-OS environment, boot and run-time services, CPU independent drivers, expanded boot volume etc.) and also powerful security mechanisms (e.g. secure boot, secure firmware update, etc.). They are aimed to provide platform integrity, be root of trust of security architecture, control all stages of boot process until it pass control to authenticated OS kernel. This paper describes about the architecture and implementation of UEFI, which enhance security in the pre-boot environment. It also discusses about malware attacks like rootkit and bootkit, and outlines UEFI secure boot solution.