Use this book to build secure firmware.

As operating systems and hypervisors have become successively more hardened, malware has moved further down the stack and into firmware. Firmware represents the boundary between hardware and software, and given its persistence, mutability, and opaqueness to today’s antivirus scanning technology, it represents an interesting target for attackers.

As platforms are universally network-connected and can contain multiple devices with firmware, and a global supply chain feeds into platform firmware, assurance is critical for consumers, IT enterprises, and governments. This importance is highlighted by emergent requirements such as NIST SP800-193 for firmware resilience and NIST SP800-155 for firmware measurement.

This book covers the secure implementation of various aspects of firmware, including standards-based firmware―such as support of the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF), and Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specifications―and also provides code samples and use cases. Beyond the standards, alternate firmware implementations such as ARM Trusted Firmware and other device firmware implementations (such as platform roots of trust), are covered.

What You Will Learn

• Get an overview of proactive security development for firmware, including firmware threat modeling
• Understand the details of architecture, including protection, detection, recovery, integrity measurement, and access control
• Be familiar with best practices for secure firmware development, including trusted execution environments, cryptography, and language-based defenses
• Know the techniques used for security validation and maintenance

Who This Book Is For

Given the complexity of modern platform boot requirements and the threat landscape, this book is relevant for readers spanning from IT decision makers to developers building firmware.

Table of Contents

Part I: Overview

Chapter 1: Introduction to Firmware

Chapter 2: Proactive Firmware Security Development

Part II: Security Architecture

Chapter 3: Firmware Resiliency: Protection

Chapter 4: Firmware Resiliency: Detection

Chapter 5: Firmware Resiliency: Recovery

Chapter 6: OS Resiliency

Chapter 7: Trusted Boot

Chapter 8: Device Security

Chapter 9: S3 Resume

Chapter 10: Access Control

Chapter 11: Configuration

Chapter 12: Security Model

Chapter 13: Virtual Firmware

Part Ill: Security Development

Chapter 14: Firmware Secure Coding Practice

Chapter 15: Compiler Defensive Technology

Chapter 16: The Kernel

Chapter 17: Trusted Execution Environment

Chapter 18: Silicon Secure Configuration

Chapter 19: Cryptography

Chapter 20: Programming Language

Part IV: Security Test

Chapter 21: Security Unit Test

Chapter 22: Security Validation and Penetration Test

Chapter 23: Maintenance

About the Authors

Jiewen Yao is a principal engineer in the Intel Architecture, Graphics, and Software Group. He has been engaged as a firmware developer for over 15 years. He is a member of the UEFI Security sub team, and the TCG PC Client sub working group. He has presented at industry events such as the Intel Developer Forum, UEFI Plugfest, and RSA conference. He worked with co-author Vincent Zimmer to publish 30 “A Tour Beyond BIOS” technical papers for tianocore.org and firmware.intel.com. He holds 40 US patents.

Vincent Zimmer is a senior principal engineer in the Intel Architecture, Graphics, and Software Group. He has been engaged as a firmware developer for over 25 years and leads the UEFI Security sub team. He has presented at industry events such as the Open Source Firmware Conference, Linux Fest Northwest, Intel Developer Forum, UEFI Plugfest, Open Compute Project Summit, BlackHat Las Vegas, BSides Seattle, Toorcon, and Cansecwest. In addition to collaborating with Jiewen Yao on many white papers, he has co-authored several books on firmware, papers, and over 400 issued US patents.