What does Secure Boot do during startup?

What does Secure Boot do during startup?

• A. It accelerates boot time by skipping checks.
• B. It allows only signed drivers after login.
• C. Secure Boot verifies signatures of software during startup to prevent untrusted code.
• D. It encrypts the hard drive.

Answer: (C)

Secure Boot is a UEFI feature that protects the boot process by ensuring only trusted software can run before the operating system starts. At startup, the firmware checks the digital signatures of critical boot components—like the bootloader, kernel, and early drivers—against a set of trusted keys stored in hardware. If a component isn’t signed with a trusted key, the boot is blocked, preventing untrusted or tampered code from taking control before the OS loads. It isn’t about skipping checks to speed up boot, it doesn’t operate only after login, and it doesn’t perform disk encryption.

Secure Boot is a UEFI feature that protects the boot process by ensuring only trusted software can run before the operating system starts. At startup, the firmware checks the digital signatures of critical boot components—like the bootloader, kernel, and early drivers—against a set of trusted keys stored in hardware. If a component isn’t signed with a trusted key, the boot is blocked, preventing untrusted or tampered code from taking control before the OS loads. It isn’t about skipping checks to speed up boot, it doesn’t operate only after login, and it doesn’t perform disk encryption.