Re: How safe is my BIOS Power-on Password?

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pat_mc wrote:


Hi -

A short while ago I learnt that if I transfer my data from an NTFS to
a FAT32 harddrive I lose all my security features on the files.

Since I use a BIOS power-on password to protect the data on my laptop
I am now wondering if there is any point to doing so at all. Could an
unauthorised person not simply access my PC with a bootable Linux CD
such as Knoppix and copy all of my files over to a FAT32 external
drive?

Or will BIOS be smart enough and prevent the evil-doer from doing
this? If yes, how? If no, is there anything else I can do to be safe
against data theft in case of laptop theft?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Pat

Hi Pat,

I think earlier I saw an article by you on this concept and you were
speaking about a laptop. If that is the case then I would like to clear
up a few points for you.

1) You can not simply pull the CMOS battery on most laptops built in
the last five years to remove the BIOS password. On laptops, the BIOS
password is stored in FlashRAM so losing power doesn't effect it.

2) Most Phoenix BIOS actually have two BIOS passwords levels, one for
the supervisor and one for the user. The supervisor password will allow
you to set boot devices and boot options. On my machine, I have it set
so that the computer will only boot from the hard disk. The 'user'
password can not change the boot devices or boot order if they press
the 'Esc' key during boot, all they are shown is the hard disk.

3) With laptops, the hard disk is normally easy to get to and removed.
Important data should therefore be stored in encrypted containers on
the hard disk. I might add that I do not recommend including all data
in a single data since if the container has a glitch, you could lose
everything.

4) Some newer laptops come with hard disk that can be encrypted. My
dv8100cto has this capability. I tested it and the performance is very
good. The only problem is that if the FlashRAM where the encryption key
is stored get corrupted, you end up with a very pretty paper weight
that looks just like an internal hard disk.

Over-all, I would recommend the use of a good quality encryption
container and a good quality 'external' portable hard disk for your
really important data.

--

Sincerely,
C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services
Web site: http://csdcs.tlerma.com/
E-mail: csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx
.

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