A Windows update from Microsoft unexpectedly affected Linux users, leaving many users with dual-system installations in the lurch. A recent security patch released by Microsoft prevented users who use Linux and Windows as dual systems from booting their Linux systems. So how to solve the “Linux won’t boot” problem? Here is the answer…

Microsoft Windows update victimizes Linux users, dual systems won’t boot!

Following the “Linux won’t boot” complaints, users encountered a “serious error” when they tried to start their Linux systems after installing the update. Especially popular Linux distributions such as Debian and Ubuntu were affected. The error message, “Verifying shim SBAT data failed: Security Policy Violation”, indicates a security policy violation.

The root cause of this bug is a patch Microsoft released two years ago to close a vulnerability known as CVE-2022-2601. This vulnerability was related to a boot loader known as GRUB, which is used on many Linux devices.

To close the vulnerability, Microsoft added a mechanism called SBAT (Startup Binary Attestation Table) to the update. This mechanism was intended to prevent the installation of malware during the boot process. However, this update caused unexpected problems on Linux systems.

Although Microsoft claimed that this update would not cause problems with Linux, the results showed the opposite. Dual system users were very disappointed that they were unable to run their Linux systems after this update.