Vulnerability Development mailing list archives
Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible
From: Ian Kayne <Ian.Kayne () SOFTLAB CO UK>
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 11:59:47 -0000
It is definately possible to overload a monitor by using the wrong scan rates. I just had a word with one of our Linux guys, he told me that he personally blew up an older monitor by doing this. It's pretty hard to do it with modern monitors, as they are far more resilient. I'll try and find a technical explanation of why this works... But talking about hardware viruses, how about these: 1. The virus that (allegedly) stepped the heads & wrote to your harddrive quickly & often, it would cause bad sectors, (this is real AFAIK) 2. The virus that did the same to floppy drives (also real, AFAIK) 3. The TiVO (or ReplayTV as I believe it's called in the US), which can be reprogrammed via its phone connection. Problem with this would be distribution. (not real yet) 4. The Nokia virus - it's possible to put phones like the 7110 into Engineer mode, then change/modify/lock another phone. This can be done solely with the infra red. (not real yet, but potentially dangerous). Also, SMS messages can be sent with control codes that directly change the eprom on the phone. 5. 99% of modern DVD/CD drives (especially laptops) are flash programmable. I've seen load of people killing a CD drive by flashing it with an incorrect rom image. ROM size is a problem (not real) 6. Not forgetting the satellite service provider who recently knocked out a stack of hacked decoder cards with a virus payload slowly sent over a period of months. Just some thoughts.. Excuse me while I go and service pack my mp3 player and back up my phone... Ian Kayne Technical Specialist - IT Solutions Softlab Ltd - A BMW Company
-----Original Message----- From: Ma Gores [mailto:gores () INAME COM] Sent: 07 March 2001 04:32 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 andasia-regionas many times as it can. It would leave DVD locked eitherto japan orasia, 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 andI don't care."Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents atdiscuss () linmodems org
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Current thread:
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible, (continued)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Jonathan James (Mar 25)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible Dom De Vitto (Mar 07)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible fejed (Mar 08)
- Re: Modern hw-killing virus feasible christian void (Mar 07)
- 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)