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Extensible Firmware Interface's position in the software stack.
The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware.
UEFI is meant as a replacement for the BIOS firmware interface, present in all IBM PC-compatible personal computers.[1][2] In practice, most UEFI images have legacy support for BIOS services.
 It can be used to allow remote diagnostics and repair of computers, (or security exploits) even without another operating system. [3]
The original EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) specification was developed by Intel. Some of its practices and data formats mirror ones from Windows.[4][5] In 2005, UEFI deprecated EFI 1.10 (final release of EFI). The UEFI specification is managed by the Unified EFI Forum.