Security Guardrails and Guidelines for BMC Systems in Cloud Data Centers

Learn about critical security considerations for Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs) in this conference talk from the Open Compute Project. Explore how BMCs provide essential remote management capabilities for server systems while also presenting potential security vulnerabilities that must be addressed. Discover why securing BMCs is crucial for preventing unauthorized access, maintaining system integrity, and enabling effective remote server management at scale in cloud data centers. Examine the "Pantsdown" vulnerability from 2019 as a case study of how BMC security issues can remain undetected. Follow along as Microsoft's Darpana Loodu and IBM's Elaine Palmer present the OCP Security Workgroup's guidelines and guardrails for protecting these vital system components, with a focus on impact, openness, and scalability in server security.