BIOS Password Initialization via Server-Side Cryptographic Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current BIOS password protection methods can be easily bypassed, allowing malicious attacks, as password recovery and initialization services provided by manufacturers and service centers can be exploited by unauthorized users.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a user terminal and a server that generates and verifies a ciphertext using public and private keys to initialize the BIOS password, ensuring only authorized users can perform password recovery or initialization, utilizing secure communication protocols like SSL/TLS to prevent attacks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If BIOS password recovery and initialization services are provided by manufacturers and service centers, then users can recover forgotten passwords, but malicious attackers can also exploit these services to bypass security
Solution Approach 1:
A server acts as an intermediary between the user terminal and the password initialization process. The server receives initialization requests, verifies them through cryptographic protocols, and only then allows password recovery. This intermediary layer prevents direct exploitation of BIOS services by attackers while maintaining legitimate recovery functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary verification through cryptographic authentication before allowing password initialization. The server verifies the user terminal's identity and authorization status before processing any password recovery request, preventing malicious actors from exploiting the service without proper authorization.
2Reliability
If public key cryptography is used to verify initialization requests, then security is enhanced, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The complex cryptographic verification logic is extracted from the user terminal and relocated to a dedicated server. The terminal only needs to generate and send cryptographic proofs, while the server handles the heavy lifting of verification. This extraction reduces the complexity burden on the terminal device while maintaining strong security.
3Ease of operation
If ciphertext is converted to manual input form or QR code, then ease of operation improves, but potential for human error increases
Solution Approach 1:
The ciphertext is copied into multiple formats (manual input form and QR code) to accommodate different user capabilities and device types. Users can choose the format that is most convenient and accurate for them, whether that is typing manually or scanning a QR code with a camera, thereby maintaining both ease of operation and input accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
A user terminal is provided. The user terminal includes an input interface configured to receive a user input of requesting initialization of a password of a basic input output system (BIOS) of the user terminal, and receive a decrypted string obtained by decrypting a ciphertext for initialization in response to the initialization request being verified based on verification information from a server, memory storing one or more computer programs, and one or more processors communicatively coupled to the input interface and the memory, wherein the one or more computer programs include computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors individually or collectively, cause the user terminal to generate the ciphertext by encrypting a predetermined length of random string in response to the user input, and initialize the password of the BIOS according to whether a second hash value for the decrypted string and a first hash value for the random string match.