Patent ID: 7103529

Claim:
A machine-readable medium that provides executable firmware instructions which, when executed by a processor in a computer system having a native environment that executes in physical mode, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: implementing an extensible firmware framework via which firmware modules are loaded during a pre-boot phase of a computer system; implementing a firmware-based virtual machine monitor (VMM) upon the computing system; emulating legacy hardware components that are not present in the native environment using the VMM to provide support for legacy code running on the computer system; restricting access by the firmware modules to a subset of system resources provided by the native environment and to a subset of a memory map of the native environment, via the VMM; and authenticating, via the VMM, at least one of the firmware modules that is loaded during the pre-boot phase by comparing a digital signature provided with the at least one of the firmware modules with valid digital signatures stored in a secure storage that is accessible to the VMM, but which the VMM makes inaccessible to the firmware modules and the legacy code.