BIOS limited restriction options available, alternative?

[commentator8]

Hi all,

I have a customer asking whether it is possible to lock down a computer so that people cant just boot from a disk. Easy no? Not really. It is an AMIBIOS with a surprisingly wide amount of configurable options, but on the security page it just has set supervisor/user password for bios.

Which means that anyone can press f11 for boot menu and boot from a disk. There is no option to turn off the boot menu.

I believe i have the latest bios, and can supply system details if needed. But in general, in a case where a computer has bios x which doesnt seem to support such options (password to turn the computer on, turn off f11 etc) is there anything to do? Sort of like dd-wrt for routers?

 

[ZenTree]

Have you tried setting this password? The few BIOS locked computers I've come across actually lock the boot menu key as well. Whether this is a seperate setting normally or not, I'm unsure, but worth actually trying it if you haven't.

Not aware of any alternative BIOS products out there but never really had to look.

 

[commentator8]

Yep, had tried setting it, just blocks getting into bios. Odd that more bios's dont allow for this, and that there is seemingly no way to implement it.

 

[wimwauters]

Yep, had tried setting it, just blocks getting into bios. Odd that more bios's dont allow for this, and that there is seemingly no way to implement it.

You can try the old corporate method: super glue

There's also plenty of fancy 'locks' to physically block USB ports and optical drives. Or you could open the case and unplug some SATA and USB cables? That only leaves the motherboard mounted ones.

 

[angry_geek]

Usually, you can disable boot from usb or cd in bios. Is this not available in this case?

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

 

[commentator8]

Nope, when i manually disable cd/usb in the boot order, and then press f11 on boot it allows me to select both of them - as has been my experience with every other bios in the past.

And in response to the bove super glue style comments, sadly i can't as cd/usb access is still needed.

So it comes down to luck of the BIOS?

 

[red12049]

Nope, when i manually disable cd/usb in the boot order, and then press f11 on boot it allows me to select both of them - as has been my experience with every other bios in the past.

And in response to the bove super glue style comments, sadly i can't as cd/usb access is still needed.

So it comes down to luck of the BIOS?

If you disable their use in BIOS, do they actually boot the machine when you select them?

Rick

 

[commentator8]

Yep, it boots from the "disabled" options.