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So what I am looking for is a way to prevent anyone from booting from a USB drive on this specific Dell Inspiron 5559.

so normally what I would have to do is to set an Admin password in BIOS that would prevent anyone from booting using a USB drive or change BIOS settings without the Admin password, but the bad thing is the admin password could be easily bypassed using certain websites with the System Serial that appear in the message asking for the admin password, I won't post links here but you can search on Youtube and see for yourself.

so apparently that doesn't work now I have windows 10 installed and I can use Bitlocker to encrypt my HDD and protect my Info but I am also trying to protect the HDD from sabotage ie formatting the HDD (without using external backup Drive).

In short I want that if someone wanted to tamper with the laptop they would need to open the laptop casing and take the HDD out (or even the cmos battery if they tried to reset the BIOS settings) and I am OK with that.

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    So you want to defend against an attack that requires physical access to pull off (resetting the BIOS password), but you're perfectly happy leaving yourself open to a different attack that requires the same physical access, but less technical know-how, to pull off (taking out the hard drive)?
    – Joseph Sible-Reinstate Monica
    Sep 26, 2019 at 22:06
  • No that not what I meant, opening the laptop itself and taking out the hard drive would be impossible to be done in my special case so I am secure from this angle
    – Mostafa
    Sep 26, 2019 at 22:15
  • It was common to put the USB ports out of use with glue or other resines to prevent malicious use. But it also prevent to use a USB mouse or memory stick... So you will end with a balance between security (no USB ports available) and useability.
    – Serge Ballesta
    Sep 27, 2019 at 7:28
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    You should use sentences more often to have your questions better received. The entire post is one massive sentence. The best way to prevent booting from a USB is setting a BIOS password, which also can help against certain other attacks on the BIOS for some firmware.
    – john doe
    Sep 27, 2019 at 17:06
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    What are you actually trying to achieve? Protecting the data on the drive is done with encryption. Protecting the drive itself - or the whole machine - is done with physical security. Preventing unauthorized use of a booted system can be done any number of ways, typically some combination of physical (restrict who can use the system, or monitor usage to prevent abuse) and technical (restrict network access, require passwords to unlock, etc.). Preventing booting from USB is a bizarre terminal goal, and implies the attacker has physical access to the ports and to the machine at bootup.
    – CBHacking
    Feb 19, 2021 at 23:08

1 Answer 1

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I recommend you to contact Dell support. It is possible that a firmware update is able to solve your issues (at least, by changing the algorithm if not removing the bypass altogether).

A second option would be to replace the original firmware (BIOS) with a different one (coreboot, OpenBIOS...) which doesn't offer such bypass (you should be well aware of the risks if that firmware doesn't work on your computer, though).

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