February 26, 2026
Water you doing, OEMs?
Hydroph0bia – a fixed SecureBoot bypass for UEFI firmware based on Insyde H2O
Dell moves, others snooze: users rage, meme, and panic over boot-hole fixes
TLDR: Only Dell has shipped fixes for the Hydroph0bia boot security flaw 10 days after disclosure, while rivals lag. Commenters praise Dell, roast long timelines, and clash over whether Secure Boot is vital or overrated—big deal because it risks millions of everyday laptops until updates arrive.
Hydroph0bia — the cheeky name for a serious boot-time security hole — has the comment sections boiling. Ten days after the embargo lifted, only Dell shipped BIOS fixes, and the crowd noticed. The top vibe: “Dell moved fast; everyone else hit snooze.” Lenovo’s “not before 2025-07-30” timeline drew eye-rolls and “see you next school year” jokes, while Framework’s “we’re vulnerable, no ETA” sparked disappointed sighs from fans. HP, Acer, Fujitsu? The silence became a meme.
Non‑tech translation: this bug lets attackers slip past the PC’s startup lock (Secure Boot), which is supposed to stop tampering. The researcher dug into Dell’s update and found the fix blocks sneaky “shadow” settings and locks them down — basically slamming the door shut. Nerds cheered the 11‑year‑old tool still working (“UEFI archaeology!”) and the clever variable clean‑up. Casuals just asked, “So… should I be worried?” Short answer: yes, keep an eye on updates.
Drama corner: one camp says Secure Boot is “security theater”; another fires back that it stops real-world malware. A third defends vendors — firmware testing is risky and slow — which only enraged the “patch now” crowd. Bonus chaos: a pedant derailed a subthread to argue the post’s year tag. Internet, never change. Read about UEFI and Secure Boot.
Key Points
- •Only Dell has shipped BIOS updates fixing Hydroph0bia (CVE-2025-4275) 10 days after embargo; Lenovo and Framework acknowledge vulnerability, with Lenovo targeting 2025-07-30 or later.
- •Firmware analysis compared Dell pre- and post-fix BIOS images using InsydeImageExtractor, UEFITool, Beyond Compare, and IDA 9.1 with diaphora.
- •Driver size changes indicate focus of fixes: BdsDxe unchanged, SecurityStubDxe −32 bytes, SecureFlashDxe +704 bytes.
- •BdsDxe and SecureFlashDxe replaced direct gRT->SetVariable with LibSetSecureVariable to remove special Insyde variables (AW attribute) via SMM; SecureFlashDxe also added ExitBootServices handling.
- •SecureFlashDxe now removes SecureFlashSetupMode and SecureFlashCertData at entry and registers VariablePolicy to block them; SecurityStubDxe’s event tweak is unrelated and still trusts shadowed SecureFlashCertData.