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When I received my Dell XPS M1210 from Dell during 2006, I did not change anything in the BIOS.

Today, I came across to Steve Gibson’s freeware utility called “SecurAble“. It will check if the modern processor is SecurAble:

After trying the said SecurAble, it detected that the “hardware virtualization” on my Dell XPS M1210 is “off”, it’s not Locked. It should be locked but Dell did not lock it by default and I should’ve check the BIOS in the first place but again, Dell should lock it! before shipping.

How does Hardware Virtualization help with security?
“Virtual Machine” technology is used to create fully contained environments that can be used to insulate the real hosting operating system from any actions taken by software running within the “virtual” environment. Although this security benefiting virtual machine technology has been used for many years, its widespread adoption has been slowed down by the significant performance overhead imposed by software emulation of the virtual environment. Intel’s and AMD’s native hardware support for virtual machines means that virtually all of this emulation overhead can be eliminated from both the host and virtual environments. This makes the use of virtual machines for security containment much more practical.

The second benefit of hardware support is that even malicious software running with maximum privileges in the system’s kernel is unable to escape from virtual containment. Thus, hardware support for virtual machine technology introduces the possibility of creating a “hypervisor” to operate at a hardware-enforced level below the operating system “supervisor” which opens many exciting possibilities for further enhancing the system’s security. It will likely be several years before these capabilities are offered natively within Windows, but we might expect to see third-party security software publishers taking advantage of these features in the near future.

Anyway.. after finding out that it is not locked, I went to BIOS and enabled the Virtualization then I run the test again… it’s now SecurAble.

Does your modern processor SecurAble? I posted the screenshots at http://www.dozleng.com/updates/index.php?showtopic=18764

I’m not alone. Other Dell customer found out also that it’s not locked.

I played again few days ago :
I refreshed the Dell XPS M1210 with Vista + SP1 update by flattening it and installing Vista SP1 (from MSDN, slipstreamed Vista and SP1).
Not much reason other than I just want to refresh the laptop. The fresh install of Vista SP1 is a breeze. Drivers were all installed except the following built-in hardware by Dell:

• The driver of Logitech’s built-in webcam
• The updated driver for Sigmatel Soundblaster

Then I installed Windows SteadyState so I can use the laptop in installing updates or browsing the net without worrying of malware or screwed update.

Windows SteadyState is quite easy to use! Look at the screenshots I have in my article at Brighthub.com. Title of the article is Securing your computers using Windows Disk Protection, Try&Decide or ShadowMode

I have Acronis True Image’s Try&Decide enabled on my Vista desktop but I will be installing SteadyState on the desktop also because the Vista laptop and SteadyState simply works great together.

Patch Tuesday is coming and I’m sure with Windows SteadyState, I can check first if any updates will not have side-effect.

Note: If you will use Windows SteadyState’s Windows Disk Protection feature and decided to ‘trash’ or ‘discard’ the changes on your Vista or XP system, it will reboot and show the logon screen, DO NOT logon because you cannot logon. You need to wait until the Windows SteadyState’s Windows Disk Protection to reboot itself again.

Note: Windows SteadyState is compatible with Windows Vista and XP. You can download it free from Microsoft.
For information on SteadyState:

• Windows SteadyState Forums
• Windows SteadyState Readme File
• Windows SteadyState Worldwide page
• Windows SteadyState Technical FAQ
• Windows SteadyState Handbook

This article will explain how to extend your browser’s security which will help in making better decisions before viewing online information.