I recently got my hands on a used Lenovo workstation from 2012. I Can’t install new bios or updates on it because of some problems. Is this a big security concern?
And are there any big privacy concerns with Lenovo Bios?
Not getting firmware updates anymore is a security concern. How much is debatable. Since the device is 12 years old, it also lacks a lot of modern security features.
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Yep, I have a Samsung notebook purchased around 2012 and when I ran fwupdmgr update on Fedora, the command returned a GitHub wiki page that alerts users that UEFI is not supported on older models. (Now, I rarely use this laptop never connected to WiFi to test new flash drives.)
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It depends on your use case. If you will rarely expose this laptop to the internet, you should be fine. If you intend to actively use it to read mail and browse the web as a daily driver, it may not be a very good idea strictly speaking.
Maybe you could mitigate some issues by running a VM on top of it? I would assume its all you have and you dont have much of a choice. Do be advised that it may be safer to just do online banking/web browsing/downloading files through your phone and just transfer the needed files to the laptop without turning on the WiFi/Bluetooth and the internet in general.
No USB tether as well, just simple copying of data.
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