WARNING.txt

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chipsec should only be used on test systems!
It should not be installed/deployed on production end-user systems.

There are multiple reasons for that:

1. Chipsec kernel drivers provide direct access to hardware resources to
user-mode applications (for example, access to physical memory). When installed on
production systems this could allow malware to access privileged hardware resources.

2. The driver is distributed as source code. In order to load it on Operating System
which requires kernel drivers to be signed (for example, 64 bit versions of
Microsoft Windows 7 and higher), it is necessary to enable TestSigning (or equivalent)
mode and sign the driver executable with test signature. Enabling TestSigning
(or equivalent) mode turns off an important OS kernel protection and should not be done
on production systems.

3. Due to the nature of access to hardware, if any chipsec module issues incorrect access
to hardware resources, Operating System can hang or panic.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!