Master the Basics of BIOS

Understanding BIOS: History, Functions, and Security

• BIOS is the program used by a computer's microprocessor to start the computer system after it is powered on and manage data flow between the computer's operating system (OS) and attached devices.
• The term BIOS was first coined in 1975 by American computer scientist Gary Kildall and was incorporated into IBM's first personal computer in 1981.
• BIOS' popularity has waned in favor of a newer technology: Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), and Intel announced a plan in 2017 to retire support for legacy BIOS systems by 2020, replacing them with UEFI.
• The main use of BIOS is to act as a middleman between OSes and the hardware they run on, but in some cases, BIOS can arrange for data to flow directly to memory from devices that require faster data flow to be effective.
• BIOS comes included with computers as firmware on a chip on the motherboard, and when users turn on their computer, the microprocessor passes control to the BIOS program, which is always located at the same place on an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM).
• BIOS identifies, configures, tests, and connects computer hardware to the OS immediately after a computer is turned on through its four main functions: Power-on self-test (POST), Bootstrap loader, Software/drivers, and Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) setup.
• Users can access BIOS and configure it through BIOS Setup Utility, which varies somewhat depending on the computer being used.
• BIOS security is a somewhat overlooked component of cybersecurity but should still be managed to prevent hackers from executing malicious code on the OS.
• Some BIOS security flaws could enable ransomware programs inside a motherboard's UEFI and exploit other PC BIOS vulnerabilities.
• BIOS manufacturers include AMI, Asus, Foxconn, Hewlett Packard (HP), and Ricoh.
• Knowing the motherboard manufacturer is important because users may want to update their BIOS and chipset drivers to the most recent versions, which may improve computer performance or patch recent BIOS-level security vulnerabilities.
• Each manufacturer has a unique way of updating these drivers.