Forum Discussion

Stonehu's avatar
Stonehu
Iron Contributor
Apr 18, 2026

Windows11 Prompts "Secure Boot KEK Update" Should I Install It?

The system showed a "Secure Boot KEK update" notification. What is this, and is it necessary to install?

 

3 Replies

  • Cainy's avatar
    Cainy
    Brass Contributor

    Secure Boot is a UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) feature that checks the digital signature of the operating system and other boot components to ensure they are genuine and have not been tampered with. This helps protect against malware and other types of attacks that could compromise the security of the system.

  • if you need secure boot, which is a very good security feature, then yes, update it, else don't do it, but if windows is forcing you, open regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\Orchestrator

    and and if you see flyout options set to 10, set it to 0 and you will have a plain shutdown or restart

  • vanessatamora's avatar
    vanessatamora
    Copper Contributor

    Yup, You should but you have until June if you would prefer to read up on it first.  I've been working on it for all our work computers to make sure we get there by June.  Also, it won't break anything to not do it yet, it will just impact security update stuff after June. I read they are adding to make it visible somewhere now because the certs that are being updated are used before login and it was a pain to get their details a few month back.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/secure-boot-certificate-update-status-in-the-windows-security-app-5ce39986-7dd2-4852-8c21-ef30dd04f046