New computer attack BadBIOS...

[mike123abc]

http://arstechnica.com/security/201...erious-mac-and-pc-malware-that-jumps-airgaps/

Interesting account of a security researcher's adventures with a computer attack. It looks like it attacks the BIOS and implants itself. What I found interesting was that it would even go as far as to use the speakers and microphones of computers to set up an ultrasonic network to stay connected to the internet if the computer did not have an internet connection.

Reminds me of a science fiction movie where the computers become self aware and any attempt to stop them is futile...

 

[avg1joe]

Holy crap!

 

[primestar31]

B.S.!

I don't believe this at all. IF, I repeat IF it exists even in a crippled partial form of all he claims it's capable of, he created it himself, and it's isolated to his own lab pc's. Several times all through the article and comments, it clearly says NOBODY else has peer-reviewed ANY of his findings.

If something like this existed, it WOULD be in the wild for SURE, and it would either be stamped out quickly, or they'd be proclaiming the end of home computing as we know it.

 

[mike123abc]

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/security-expert-badbios-malware,news-17806.html

Another article on it.

If it is real I would speculate it is the product of a government more than an individual or a group of hackers. It may not be spreading past his lab because it has not been given the order to do so. If he was accidentally infected (i.e. there was a different target) they might have it coded to stay on one network to avoid it getting out into the world to be fought. Look at how Flame and Suxnet viruses were very effective and highly localized.

 

[. Raine]

Strangest of all was the ability of infected machines to transmit small amounts of network data with other infected machines even when their power cords and Ethernet cables were unplugged and their Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards were removed....

I totally agree with Primestar31, B.S. The above is silly and infecting multiple OS's and BIOS types would take a very talented group of individuals. Coding a virus to infect BIOS is possible, but to infect all different types of BIOS and multiple operating systems....very, very doubtful.

 

[Foxbat]

Sounds like Click Bait, and it worked...

 

[mike123abc]

Actually how many versions of BIOS are there really, and how dissimilar are they? It probably would not be hard to attack all the popular ones.

 

[primestar31]

Actually how many versions of BIOS are there really, and how dissimilar are they? It probably would not be hard to attack all the popular ones.

IF it was doable, it WOULD have been done already by somebody. Since it hasn't, I say baloney to it. At least in any form that can go viral via standard virus, etc. propagation methods.

IF there is any sort of "Skynet" (IE: Doomsday) type virus, it's (whoever has it) not going to be allowed to be released until they really, REALLY think there's a reason to do so, and it's absolute last resort. Just like there's never yet been an all-out global nuclear war. YET. There's no coming back from a war such as that, and everybody knows that. Same thing with a virus of that sort. Not that I think it's really possible yet.

So, don't fall for transparent phony stories such as this.

 

[. Raine]

Quite a few different types of BIOS and BIOS versions actually, and different ways to access them, not to mention the multiple different types of BIOS chips themselves even within one brand of computer, never mind multiple brands.

Not to mention also finding the space within the prom, eprom, whatever the BIOS chip is, to store your code in. Now if they'd said wiping the BIOS clean and bricking the computers, I'd believed that, that is simple.

What they're claiming seems ridiculous and as Primestar31 pointed out, no one has substantiated this guy's claims.