Saved Bookmarks
| 1. |
Solve : Problem with new antivirus software!? |
|
Answer» Add 3 very's to that..... In fact, if I may be so bold to say so, it really only exists in theory.Thank You.I think the only confirmed BIOS infections were controlled. Just to prove it can be done. -Conspiracy theorist says- Quote -Non skeptic says- There was no confirming response of such a virus spreading through the internet... Full conversationlol. additionally there really isn't anything a virus could do in the BIOS anyway- Windows replaces all BIOS interrupts with it's own routines, so really the virus can't be used for things like hard drive infection (and even if it could, there is FAR too little space for both the infection routine and the Booting BIOS, so it would PROBABLY just end up being a computer that can infect hard disks when started, but not actually boot. Or it could do SOMETHING really evil, like only allow certain hardware to be used or perhaps randomly swap master and slave arrangements. Although such a prospect would be a great piece of joke malware, as far as spreading (and thus meeting the definition of a virus) it really doesn't hold water. Additionally most programmers who know enough ASM to do something like that aren't about to waste their time with such childish endeavours. And as we all know infecting the BIOS while windows is running usually advises you not to perform any other tasks or have any other open applications. One can then logically CONCLUDE that almost all (if any) attempts by malware to infect a BIOS would not only be very system specific but also fail over 99% of the time, since the user, unaware that the BIOS is being flashed will go about their business as usual, which may or may not cause the flashing program, likely very badly written to specific hardware, to fail to flash the BIOS, or possibly hang the entire machine. In either case, the inevitable reboot will mean that you end up with the black screen and possibly a attempt to read the floppy (if there is a ROM in the motherboard as a fail-safe allowing for emergency flash via floppy).The only reason i scoff at this would be to follow the LOGIC of the malware writers themselves... Sure they may create temporary havoc for awhile but this would be simply and easily repaired... Since the memory constraints are so shallow i doubt it could carry a payload...even small enough to replicate itself which is after all the ultimate goal . So they simply do not waste their time on this... I've been doing this awhile and the lst time i can remember seeing one was 1979 if i remember correctly.From what has been said it also sounds like it would be very easy for an antivirus to thwart such an attack. And also if it were a real threat then I'm sure all antivirus would advertise/boast "BIOS Protection" in the program descriptions. I've never seen one advertise it. I've actually enjoyed this conversation. I decided to upgrade my BIOS because i had a problem on booting, sometimes the BIOS could not read my devices like HDD, CD ROM (primary and secondary master and slave). Problem was: The system freezes while booting up, so after I upgraded I don't have such a problem. Sometimes the booting was very slow, so I have had to wait up to 7-10 minutes to see my icons on desktop. I know that upgrading the BIOS is not recommended to everyone but I could not find a better solution, now everythong works perfectly. Cheers. |
|