MSI accidentally disables Secure Boot on hundreds of its motherboards:
One of the latest MSI UEFI updates accidentally disabled Secure Boot technology on hundreds of its motherboards, reports Bleeping Computer. As a consequence, over 290 motherboards for AMD and Intel processors can run insecure operating systems, which can be harmful.
MSI's firmware update version 7C02v3C released on January 18, 2022, comes with Image Execution Policy set to 'Always Execute' by default, which allows the PC to boot an operating system that lacks proper signature by its developer. This means that a computer can boot an OS that may have been tampered with, which is an insecure policy as the operating system may be infected or have malicious intent.
The discovery was recently made by Polish security researcher named Dawid Potocki. The researcher noted that he contacted MSI, but did not receive any response, which essentially means that so far the motherboard maker has not fixed its Secure Boot.
See article for a list of motherboard models.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday January 21 2023, @08:57AM
MSI has assured users on Reddit that the company will soon deploy a fix for a Secure Boot bug affecting a plethora of AMD and Intel motherboards. The new firmware will rectify the error and enforce tighter security settings.
Although MSI's new firmware will fully restore Secure Boot's function, users can still go into the BIOS and fiddle with the individual settings themselves. Unfortunately, the motherboard vendor didn't specify an exact date on when the new firmware will be available to users. However, given the severity of the issue, it shouldn't be long before the rollout commences.