Unstoppable BIOS-Level Attacks

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As hardware level attacks are becoming more popular, two security experts at CanSecWest unveiled a completely new BIOS-based attack. Once the system is infected, the code will survive hard disk wipes and even BIOS flashes. Note that as the attack is completely hardware-based, all operating systems could be affected. While root privileges or physical access to the computer is needed to infect it, the security researchers are now working on a BIOS rootkit to readily implement the attack.

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injijagwalaafq on March 24, 2009 01:51AM Just what we need to increase the world's paranoia. reply to this

d3bruts1d on March 25, 2009 03:21AM I'm having a hard time understanding how this could remain resident even after a BIOS or OS wipe. reply to this

cold_snipe on March 25, 2009 09:13PM if its resident within some cmos memory then it could execute code on every startup to copy itself to say a location in memory. If that then senses changes to its cmos counterpart it repairs it. at least thats what my guess would be, there is no mention if it would survive a hard cmos reset tho. reply to this

geek3k on March 26, 2009 05:04AM now all we need is a program that can access the bios and clear the cmos and wipe that clean AND able to write to it a clean bios. only way unless the fresh bios install doesnt work.... whose up to the challenge reply to this

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