Re: Bios virus
From: David H. Lipman (DLipman~nospam~_at_Verizon.Net)
Date: 02/21/04
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Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 10:12:46 -0500
There is NO virus that infects the BIOS of a motherboard. The only thing that comes close
is the
CIH [aka; Chernobyl]. W95/CIH.1003 - http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_10300.htm
On the 26th of a given month or any month (depends on the variant) this *very bad* virus can
and will do two things.
1. Scrambles the contents of the hard disk with garbage data
2. Wipe the contents of Flash BIOS.
McAfee Quote:
"The viruses contain a very dangerous payload, who's trigger date depends on the variant.
On this date, they attempt to overwrite the flash-BIOS. If the flash-BIOS is write-enabled
(and this is the case in most modern computers with a flash-BIOS) this renders the
machine unusable because it will no longer boot. At the same time, they also overwrite the
hard disk with garbage."
Robert is quite correct. There is no such thing as "BIOS virus". That infers that a virus
actually infects the Flash BIOS of a motherboard, which no virus to-date has performed.
There has been the question "Can a virus destroy hardware ?"
The CIH is the virus that comes closest to this as well since the BIOS is needed to act as
the
hardware and OS middleware, and without it a hard disk or floppy disk can not perform POST
and Boot processes. If you can't boot 99% ISA/ATX platforms, you can't re-flash the Flash
RAM with a complete, intact, not corrupted BIOS code. If you can't flash the chip with
"good" code the platform is rendered impudent. In effect the hardware is useless and one
may consider it destroyed. The only remedies, replace the Flash
BIOS chip or send the motherboard to the manuafacturer (e.g, Abit, ASUS, MSI, etc) for
service.
In summation, there is no "BIOS virus" only a virus the wipes the contents of a flash RAM
based BIOS and it is the closes to that a virus gets to actually causing physical damage to
computer hardware.
Dave
"Phil Weldon" <notdisclosed@example.com> wrote in message
news:e3IZb.2307$yZ1.1785@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
| Actually, there is a virus that can reset the CMOS settings on SOME
| motherboards. But this OP really seems to be suffering just a configuration
| error, hardware error, and/or operator error, and might be more likely to
| find help in an appropriate OS or hardware newsgroup.
|
| --
| Phil Weldon, pweldonatmindjumpdotcom
| For communication,
| replace "at" with the 'at sign'
| replace "mindjump" with "mindspring."
| replace "dot" with "."
|
|
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