Microsoft update knocks out Linux computers

Last week, Microsoft released a security patch that is supposed to fix CVE-2022-2601, a two-year-old vulnerability in the GRUB bootloader.

However, something went wrong with the update and as a result, Linux-based systems refuse to boot on computers with dual operating systems.

When users try to boot the system, they get an error message saying “Verifying shim SBAT data failed: Security Policy Violation. Something has gone seriously wrong: SBAT self-check failed: Security Policy Violation.”

According to Microsoft, the bug only affects older versions of Linux-based operating systems, but apparently it has also affected the latest versions of Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin OS and Puppy Linux.

Fortunately, while waiting for an official fix, it is possible to work around the problem by temporarily turning off Secure Boot, opening the terminal and deleting the SBAT policy with the sudo mokutil -set-sbat-policy delete command. After rebooting, you should turn Secure Boot back on, Ars Technica reports.