Is hardware soft?

[Sol]

Hi there.

I'll start by pre-thanking <sic! tasteless! =)> the fine minds in this
NG that have helped me to gain insight into various questions that have
troubled/puzzled me for some time. Obviously, some very good technical
experts live in these parts. Cheers to all.

Now: is it possible for malware to physically damage PC hardware--as
in, "Virus X hosed my motherboard, looks like I need to buy a new one"?
If so, are there any exploits that exist ITW?

What got me wondering about this specifically was some years ago when I
was still a student, an individual I knew claimed he coded some malware
"strain" that could cause a hard disk to spin itself to death. Sounded
like nonsense to me (and the guy was not credible at all, I may add),
but one never knows.

Thanks very much in advance for your fine insight.

 

[Frederic Bonroy]

Sol a écrit :

Now: is it possible for malware to physically damage PC hardware--as
in, "Virus X hosed my motherboard, looks like I need to buy a new one"?
If so, are there any exploits that exist ITW?

The standard answer to this is "No known malicious program has ever done
this."

This is not to say that it is not, has never been or will never be
possible. It just hasn't been done and there are probably good reasons
to this. It doesn't seem likely in a standard computing environment.

What got me wondering about this specifically was some years ago when I
was still a student, an individual I knew claimed he coded some malware
"strain" that could cause a hard disk to spin itself to death. Sounded
like nonsense to me (and the guy was not credible at all, I may add),
but one never knows.

So many people have claimed so many things...

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Sol" <[email protected]>

| Hi there.
|
| I'll start by pre-thanking <sic! tasteless! =)> the fine minds in this
| NG that have helped me to gain insight into various questions that have
| troubled/puzzled me for some time. Obviously, some very good technical
| experts live in these parts. Cheers to all.
|
| Now: is it possible for malware to physically damage PC hardware--as
| in, "Virus X hosed my motherboard, looks like I need to buy a new one"?
| If so, are there any exploits that exist ITW?
|
| What got me wondering about this specifically was some years ago when I
| was still a student, an individual I knew claimed he coded some malware
| "strain" that could cause a hard disk to spin itself to death. Sounded
| like nonsense to me (and the guy was not credible at all, I may add),
| but one never knows.
|
| Thanks very much in advance for your fine insight.

The closest to hardware damage is quasi damage. That is for all intents and purposes it
does not work but is not "physically" broken. The example would be the CIH (aka; Chernobyl)
and Kriz viruses. If you are infected, on the payload date, it will wipe areas of the hard
disk data as well as wipe/corrupt the Flashable BIOS of the motherboard if the "read/only"
jumper is not set.

Now the motherboard is unable recognize floppies or hard disks nor boot from them. Without
that capability you can't flash a proper binary image to the flashable BIOS. If the chip is
soldered, you would have to replace the motherboard or send it off to the manufacturer to
repair it. The motherboard isn't physically damaged it just is kind of brain dead and
totally dysfunctional.

 

[Frazer Jolly Goodfellow]

Hi there.

I'll start by pre-thanking <sic! tasteless! =)> the fine minds
in this NG that have helped me to gain insight into various
questions that have troubled/puzzled me for some time.
Obviously, some very good technical experts live in these parts.
Cheers to all.

Now: is it possible for malware to physically damage PC
hardware--as in, "Virus X hosed my motherboard, looks like I
need to buy a new one"?
If so, are there any exploits that exist ITW?

What got me wondering about this specifically was some years ago
when I was still a student, an individual I knew claimed he
coded some malware "strain" that could cause a hard disk to spin
itself to death. Sounded like nonsense to me (and the guy was
not credible at all, I may add), but one never knows.

Thanks very much in advance for your fine insight.

Many moons ago some poorly designed CRT monitors could be caused to
fail by setting out-of-spec screen modes that could b*gger up the
power supply circuitry - so it would have been possible for malware
to do the same. Dunno if that actually happened

As DHL stated, malware could initaite flashing a BIOS with garbage
that would effectively kill a motherboard.

However, currently it is not damage that most authors of malware
wish to achieve. Quite the opposite in fact: they want to establish
hooks into your PC's software for various forms of commercial gain.

 

[kurt wismer]

Hi there.

I'll start by pre-thanking <sic! tasteless! =)> the fine minds in this
NG that have helped me to gain insight into various questions that have
troubled/puzzled me for some time. Obviously, some very good technical
experts live in these parts. Cheers to all.

Now: is it possible for malware to physically damage PC hardware--as
in, "Virus X hosed my motherboard, looks like I need to buy a new one"?
If so, are there any exploits that exist ITW?

it is theoretically possible if the hardware in question is designed
poorly enough, however as of yet no known virus has ever damaged
hardware and i suspect i would be just as accurate if i said the same
about known malware in general (as it would be trivial to take the
hardware damaging code from the non-viral malware and put it in a virus
and be done with this question once and for all)...

What got me wondering about this specifically was some years ago when I
was still a student, an individual I knew claimed he coded some malware
"strain" that could cause a hard disk to spin itself to death. Sounded
like nonsense to me (and the guy was not credible at all, I may add),
but one never knows.

the hard disk is in constant motion so long as the computer is turned on
(unless perhaps we're talking about a laptop, then there are power
saving considerations) so spinning the disk to death seems unlikely...

there once was a thing called drive-walking, mind you, but that's back
when read/write heads weighed several pounds each... and it wasn't so
much that it destroyed hardware (though i don't imagine it was good for
the hardware) as much as it could physically move the hardware across
the floor...

 

[Befunge Sudoku]

there once was a thing called drive-walking, mind you, but that's back
when read/write heads weighed several pounds each... and it wasn't so
much that it destroyed hardware (though i don't imagine it was good for
the hardware) as much as it could physically move the hardware across
the floor...

I've seen that happen, it's, um, interesting.
There was more _real_ risk from the operators having chair
races round the machine room on night shifts, though.

 

[edgewalker]

Hi there.

I'll start by pre-thanking <sic! tasteless! =)> the fine minds in this
NG that have helped me to gain insight into various questions that have
troubled/puzzled me for some time. Obviously, some very good technical
experts live in these parts. Cheers to all.

Now: is it possible

Gotta love these "is it possible" questions. )

for malware to physically damage PC hardware--as
in, "Virus X hosed my motherboard, looks like I need to buy a new one"?

Many claims past and present regarding CRT scan rates out of bounds
and harddrive seek exploits and overclocking CPU. Never witnessed
any real damage nor have I heard any 'credible' claims.

If so, are there any exploits that exist ITW?

Not yet.

What got me wondering about this specifically was some years ago when I
was still a student, an individual I knew claimed he coded some malware
"strain" that could cause a hard disk to spin itself to death. Sounded
like nonsense to me (and the guy was not credible at all, I may add),
but one never knows.

As someone else mentioned, bad design of hardware or implementation
would be the actual cause of failure.

Thanks very much in advance for your fine insight.

Think about it - if CIH was able to flash the EEPROM BIOS chip, and
the manufacturer states in the data sheet that only some finite number of
flash cycles on average would be possible before failure, then why couldn't
someone make the CIH BIOS flash payload run in an infinite loop?

Even if the manufacturer saw fit to include a backup BIOS in a non-flash
area so that you could, under normal conditions, jumper - boot- reflash
the chip - this chip would indeed be actually damaged (or worn out) and
not accept the reflash.

I'm not sure, but the payload may have to run in a loop for some long
time (nut less than the age of the universe) before realizing damage.

Someone might notice.