BIOS Security

Employing BIOS Security Mechanisms:

The BIOS is typically placed on a ROM chip that comes with the computer (it is often called a ROM BIOS). This ensures that the BIOS will always be available and will not be damaged by disk failures. It also makes it possible for a computer to boot itself. You can access the BIOS directly at startup by pressing DEL or an F-KEY (mostly F2).

Modern versions of BIOS offer a large number of security features with which the user or system administrator should become familiar. However, by no means should inexperienced users make changes to the BIOS settings because they might easily cause serious damage.

1. Password Protection:
With most versions of BIOS you can activate password protection. You should always make use of this feature unless you can find other ways of protecting your computer against unauthorized access. In most cases, you must decide whether the password is checked when the computer is started or only if someone tries to access the BIOS settings. In some cases, you might even be allowed to specify different passwords for the different checks.
In order to prevent unauthorized users from changing the BIOS settings, you should always enable the setup or administrator's password.

2. Boot Sequence:
The boot sequence should be set in a way that the system will always try to boot from the hard disk first. Thus, you should define, for example, "C,A" within your settings.
In this way, you will protect your system from viruses and manipulation. Apart from that, this procedure saves time and the floppy disk drive will be spared additional wear and tear.

3. Bootable USB devices:
Make sure that the ability to boot from USB devices is turned off in the BIOS because otherwise users might be able to use those devices for manipulating your system.