Vulnerability Development mailing list archives
Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible
From: "Ashworth, Robert C. [Contractor]" <ashwortr () SPAWAR NAVY MIL>
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 07:48:43 -0500
I seem to recall that in the early days of hard drives virus code was created to send an instruction to send hard drive heads beyond the disk into the spindle, resulting in a crash. -----Original Message----- From: Ma Gores [mailto:gores () iname com] Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 11:32 PM To: VULN-DEV () SECURITYFOCUS COM Subject: Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible I'd like to ask about the possibility of a virus damaging a monitor.... Reading from page 228 of the SuSe book that came with retail 6.4 (US edition)... "Unless you have in-depth knowledge... nothing should be changed in the modelines, since this could cause severe damage to your monitor." Isn't there a *possibility* that someone could change the modelines, via a Linux virus, that would "cause severe damage to your monitor". (Granted, currently Linux viruses are far less common than viruses for other platforms, but I expect we will see more as time goes on. <sigh>) Also... There has been a running thread in the alt.comp.virus.source.code newsgroup regarding the topic of "Can a Virus Damage Hardware". The general consensus seems to be that it may be possible, but it hasn't been done yet. ------- Magores "At the risk of being offensive, I think you need a little soap." -- David Gemmel At 11:34 PM 3/5/2001 +0100, you wrote:
Hi! Current DVD-regioning system provides *very* easy possibility for virus to render hardware unusable. Current DVD-roms allow setting DVD region for limited number of times. Imagine virus, that switches DVD between japan-region and asia-region as many times as it can. It would leave DVD locked either to japan or asia, effectively making it unusable for european/us citizen. Long time ago, rumors went that it is possible to kill harddrive by software. Then, old monitors could be damaged by software by missprograming them (but damage would take lot of time). Now DVDs provide effective way for software making them unusable. Pretty sad. Pavel -- I'm pavel () ucw cz. "In my country we have almost anarchy and I don't care." Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents at discuss () linmodems org
Current thread:
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible, (continued)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Jon O. (Mar 07)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Ma Gores (Mar 06)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Nick (Mar 07)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Ben Ford (Mar 07)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Titanas (Mar 08)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Lucien Fransman (Mar 08)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Ian Kayne (Mar 07)
- SV: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Christian Wettergren (privat) (Mar 08)
- Re: SV: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Lynn Crumbling (Mar 09)
- Re: SV: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Bruno Lustosa (Mar 09)
- SV: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Christian Wettergren (privat) (Mar 08)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Ashworth, Robert C. [Contractor] (Mar 07)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Michael Wojcik (Mar 07)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Robert Sandilands (Mar 07)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Peter Tonoli (Mar 08)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Syzop (Mar 08)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Ian Kayne (Mar 08)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Matt Bell (Mar 08)
- FW: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Russell Munday (Mar 08)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Jason Brvenik (Mar 08)
- Fw: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Cilice Cracker (Mar 09)
- Fw: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Cilice Cracker (Mar 09)