Submission + - Your hard disk has a virus -- your hard disk FIRMWARE. (stuff.co.nz) 1
grep -v '.*' * writes: News link vs Kasperskys' news release link.
The [Kaspersky won't name] has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers,
Kaspersky published the technical details of its research on Monday, which should help infected institutions detect the spying programs, some of which trace back as far as 2001.
The exposure of these new spying tools could lead to greater backlash against Western technology, particularly in countries.
the authors of the spying programs must have had access to the proprietary source code that directs the actions of the hard drives. "There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information."
—
I was wondering how this would work since the SATA HD firmware on the drive isn't directly executed by the OS CPU. Then I realized that it is in control of sending code that *IS* executed by the CPU, of course; "all" it has to do it add interception code to the boot-up sequence exactly like a virus. Problem solved, and to remove the virus you have to reinstall everything AS WELL AS replace your hard disk. Just one won't cut it.
I'm in the US, and wonder why anybody buy anything technical from us now-a-days when we have a government that seems to be slowly self-destructing. Money? Power? Privilege? Elitism? Protectionism? Weasel-ism? Stupidity-ism? Hell if I know.
"There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information." — Read: I can't think of how to do this therefore it can't be done.
So how soon do does the government restrict access to source code? After all, only evil hackers deal with source code that they didn't write themselves. And everyone knows that binaries are gibberish and completely random; that's why only computers run them — that's why Windows is so secure and no one looks for early info for Patch Tuesday problems (or any other software's recently released detailed problems, for that matter.)
On a different topic, I once wrote an intel 8048 disassembler so we could lobotomize and reflash an Epson dot-matrix printers' control codes and sell them at (believe it or not!) a profit. (We told them we'd support warranty issues, not the OEM, so no funny business.) So with that admission, I guess I'll soon become the official greeter: "Welcome to GitMo — would you like the swimming, diet, heating, or the insomnia suite?"
The [Kaspersky won't name] has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers,
Kaspersky published the technical details of its research on Monday, which should help infected institutions detect the spying programs, some of which trace back as far as 2001.
The exposure of these new spying tools could lead to greater backlash against Western technology, particularly in countries.
the authors of the spying programs must have had access to the proprietary source code that directs the actions of the hard drives. "There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information."
—
I was wondering how this would work since the SATA HD firmware on the drive isn't directly executed by the OS CPU. Then I realized that it is in control of sending code that *IS* executed by the CPU, of course; "all" it has to do it add interception code to the boot-up sequence exactly like a virus. Problem solved, and to remove the virus you have to reinstall everything AS WELL AS replace your hard disk. Just one won't cut it.
I'm in the US, and wonder why anybody buy anything technical from us now-a-days when we have a government that seems to be slowly self-destructing. Money? Power? Privilege? Elitism? Protectionism? Weasel-ism? Stupidity-ism? Hell if I know.
"There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information." — Read: I can't think of how to do this therefore it can't be done.
So how soon do does the government restrict access to source code? After all, only evil hackers deal with source code that they didn't write themselves. And everyone knows that binaries are gibberish and completely random; that's why only computers run them — that's why Windows is so secure and no one looks for early info for Patch Tuesday problems (or any other software's recently released detailed problems, for that matter.)
On a different topic, I once wrote an intel 8048 disassembler so we could lobotomize and reflash an Epson dot-matrix printers' control codes and sell them at (believe it or not!) a profit. (We told them we'd support warranty issues, not the OEM, so no funny business.) So with that admission, I guess I'll soon become the official greeter: "Welcome to GitMo — would you like the swimming, diet, heating, or the insomnia suite?"
