virus damaging hardware?!

[rocketpcguy]

in a microsoft quiz:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/quiz/virusbasics1.mspx

Although it is exceedingly rare for a virus to have the ability to damage your computer's disk drive, monitor, or any other type of hardware, it can happen."

really?

[leonpmu]

I do know of virii in thpast that would destroy the boot sectors, or even the partition tables of hard disks, and could even wipe out the bios, making the motherboard completely useless. As for monitors..... can't say...

[Daedrus]

in a microsoft quiz:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/quiz/virusbasics1.mspx



really?

Although no physical damage is done, some viruses have been known to overwrite system BIOS or information on hard drive controllers that basically render the hardware unusable unless reprogrammed. Chernobyl was the one that I remember the most that destroyed data on a hard drive or overwrote the BIOS. Chernobyl Virus (http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/cih.html)

[eskaypey]

Isnt there a way to change computers AC frequency which results in b00m :/

PS 6/6 on that quiz :P I know my windows

[bwkaz]

Isnt there a way to change computers AC frequency which results in b00m :/ Computers don't *use* AC power, therefore there *is* no frequency. ;)

(Yes, AC gets fed into the power supply, but it gets stepped down to a manageable level (12V, 5V, or 3.3V), then rectified into DC, before it gets sent out to the rest of the components.)

Some power supplies may allow you to change the frequency that they expect (60Hz vs. 50Hz) so they can work in countries other than the U.S., but this is done the same way as the 110V/220V switch -- it's a physical switch you have to change. It can smoke your PSU if you set it wrong, but it's not controlled by software *at* *all*.

Now, if you mean overclocking, it *may* be possible to destroy some hardware using that, but most CPUs now shut down instead of smoking themselves. (Ever since that Tom's Hardware video of the Athlon going up in smoke after the heatsink was removed got released, AMD got serious about shutting the processor down when it was running out of spec.) I'm also not sure how much hardware allows you to change its frequency via software -- some nvidia cards do (although that's probably a driver thing). Most CPUs don't -- you have to go into your BIOS to change it.

(And user code doesn't have write access to the BIOS -- heck, most of the time it doesn't have read access either.)

[Will]

You can mess up some old CRT monitors by changing the refresh rates/scan settings. Newer CRTs can probably detect allowable ranges.

[eskaypey]

bwkaz, thanks, you made it all clear. i did mean power supply freaquency but was a little bit confused.

You can mess up some old CRT monitors by changing the refresh rates/scan settings.

again, i think ive heard of a little program for windows, that changes your screen resolution multiple times, very quickly which used to damage old CRTs in some way. Dont know if thats true.

[thaddaeus]

Don't forget firmware too, a lot of dvd writers and usb devices run on firmware and if you get lucky during a synch or update of an infected file the device could be rendered useless in the same way the bios would be. I don't know of any virii that do this though as it would have to hardware specifec...

[TheCatMan]

If the system is anoying enough, then damage might be done by the user hitting keys too hard, throwing components around the room etc. I don't know how many virii have caused this, but one or two OSs have been known to.

[retsaw]

If the system is anoying enough, then damage might be done by the user hitting keys too hardThis caused the death of my first hard drive in my Amiga 1200, it was actually a bug in a program that was annoying me and I stupidly kept on performing the same action to trigger the bug, I got so fustrated I hit the reset key combo a little too hard and that caused the death of the hard drive which was mounted internally (the Amiga 1200 was an all-in-one unit for those that don't know.) I had to go back to using floppys for quite a while after that until I could afford to replace it. It was a rather hard way to learn not to take out anger/fustration on stuff I can't easily afford to replace.

[bwkaz]

changes your screen resolution multiple times, very quickly which used to damage old CRTs in some way. Dont know if thats true. It's at least possible, though I don't know if it's true either.

Don't forget firmware too, Ooooh, there's one. Anyone remember the LG problem, where their CD-ROM drives interpreted the IDE "flush cache" instruction as "begin overwrite of firmware"? (Presumably because nobody would ever send a CD-ROM the command to flush its cache, because it doesn't have one.)

That killed the CD drives (one of Mandrake's kernels sent a "flush cache" to all connected drives on shutdown, IIRC), at least, although it wasn't a virus.

It's possble (on Linux 2.6.x) to issue SCSI ioctl's on the /dev/hdX device file; that's the mechanism that cdrecord is supposed to use. One of those ioctl's might get turned into "flush your cache" by the IDE driver in the kernel. Then anyone with read access (or write, depending on the access checks that happen for that particular ioctl) to the disk file might be able to destroy those specific drives. But again, that's not a virus, just an evil user.

[Sepero]

I once destroyed a harddrive on Linux with "hdparm". I don't see why a virus couldn't do it...

[banzaikai]

> retsaw
> This caused the death of my first hard drive in my Amiga 1200

As a former Amiga dealer, I find this highly doubtful. The A1200 mounted the laptop IDE drive on a bracket inside the case, which isolated it from just about all vibrations. You'd have to hit CTRL-Ami-Ami with a sledgehammer for it to even feel a nudge. Besides, it's a laptop drive - it can handle a bump or two. My guess is the drive was on it's way out (causing your lockup/crash), and just decided to go completely out when you reset.
Now, there was a malicious program for the early model 1541s that would make the CPU think there was a seek error and cause it to bump the head against the stop (called "headbanging" among us C= gurus), which caused more than a few to go out of alignment. The newer 1541C and 1541-II drives cured this.

As for the viruses, I'm with bwkaz - a specific virus written to find a specific piece of hardware has happened, but for the most part, the hardware will be safe.

banzai "Viva Amiga" kai

[Syngin]

Interesting. Try taking the advanced quiz offered at the end of that quiz. I was perfect on the first but missed one on the second. Try to figure out which question. ;)

[banzaikai]

For those wondering...

6/6 on the first...

5/5 on the second.

I've been doing this stuff for decades, and I'm getting pretty good at it.

banzai "aces" kai
(You should see my ACT and ASVAB scores!)

[CaptainPinko]

I heard of a virus that would seek on opposite sides of a harddrive to cause it to be constantly spinning and thus broke your harddrive. Simple mechanical failure.