On June 24, 2026, the cryptographic keys that secure the boot sequence of Windows and Linux — Secure Boot — will begin to expire. Millions of PCs and servers worldwide are affected. After that date, devices may fail to boot correctly or become vulnerable to firmware-level attacks. For many Italian small and medium enterprises, this deadline will go unnoticed until the moment their systems freeze.
Why it matters
This isn't just a sysadmin problem. It's political and economic. Italian SMEs — often running hardware bought between 2018 and 2022 — are the most exposed. PC and motherboard manufacturers release firmware updates for only a few years; after that, keys expire with no patch available. A company facing a server that won't restart or a production PC that bricks means lost work hours and unexpected costs. The European Union talks about digital sovereignty and cybersecurity, but on these technical deadlines it leaves vendors in charge. The result? A growing gap between those who can afford recent hardware and those who must keep older machines alive.
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Our position
Here at Meteora Web, we see it every day: security in Italian SMEs is systematically underestimated. Clients who don't even know if Secure Boot is enabled, vendors who don't respond on firmware updates, missing backups. This expiration is a wake-up call. Europe should mandate minimum firmware support — at least 10 years for business devices, as it already does for smartphones. But no, the market decides. And the market leaves smaller players behind. Our stance is clear: if you are running business servers or PCs from 2020 or earlier, prepare now. Not on June 23. A technical audit costs a few hundred euros. A production shutdown costs thousands.
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What to do
Check the Secure Boot key expiration date in your firmware (enter BIOS/UEFI and look for “Key Expiration”). If your vendor has released an update, install it immediately. If no update is available, plan hardware replacement before June. For our clients, we've already scheduled targeted security audits. If you don't act, your server might not reboot after a system update. That's not theory.
