What must be secured on physical hardware to prevent unauthorized access to systems?

The correct answer is A. BIOS. The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) - or its modern successor UEFI - is the first code that runs when a machine powers on and controls boot device order and hardware initialization. Without a BIOS/UEFI password, an attacker with physical access can boot the machine from a USB…

Submitted by certguy· Apr 18, 2026Cloud Platform & Infrastructure Security

Question

Options

ABIOS
BSSH
CRDP
DALOM

How the community answered

(25 responses)

A
92% (23)
B
4% (1)
C
4% (1)

Explanation

The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) - or its modern successor UEFI - is the first code that runs when a machine powers on and controls boot device order and hardware initialization. Without a BIOS/UEFI password, an attacker with physical access can boot the machine from a USB drive or CD, bypassing the installed OS entirely and gaining access to all data on the system. SSH (B) and RDP (C) are network-level remote access protocols, and ALOM (D) is a Sun/Oracle remote management interface - none of these are the primary physical-hardware access control.

Topics

#Hardware Security#Physical Security Controls#Boot Security#BIOS Security

Community Discussion

No community discussion yet for this question.

Full CCSP Practice