Security News > 2021 > May > Surface Laptop 4 showcases Microsoft's new approach to PC security

Microsoft is bringing advanced hardware security to more Surface devices with cloud firmware management to help enterprises deploy new PCs quickly.

Microsoft's Surface Laptop 4 is the second Surface device that uses Secured-core to protect the firmware.

Surface Laptop 4 also protects against malicious peripherals that try to extract information from memory using Direct Memory Access by turning on Kernel DMA Protection, as well as other Windows security features like Virtualisation Based Security and Hypervisor-enforced Code Integrity.

The consumer version of Surface Laptop 4 doesn't have the same tamper-proofing on the security hardware itself, Schreffler explained.

With Surface, Microsoft has to balance succeeding in hardware with not alienating PC OEMs; CEO Satya Nadella has always talked about Surface as being there to establish new categories, and one of those categories might be mainstream hardware security.

"We worked with the Windows team and we also worked closely with AMD to make sure we can bring this technology into the broad portfolio. While Surface Laptop 4 was the first AMD device launched with Secured-core, now other OEMs are also enabled," Schreffler added.

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https://www.techrepublic.com/article/surface-laptop-4-showcases-microsofts-new-approach-to-pc-security/#ftag=RSS56d97e7