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How To Head Off ATA HDD Password Abuse

Posted by timothy on from the I-did-not-know-that dept.

An anonymous reader submits "German c't magazine has a story about abusing the security features of ATA hard disks. The bottom line is that almost all ATA hard disks in desktop PCs can be password-protected. However, on most desktop PCs, the BIOS does not support locking this option -- so viruses or malware could set a random password, making any data unreadable unless recovered by professionals."

4 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. step 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Don't let niggers use your computer.

    1. Re:step 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      Niggers using a computer? I don't think anyone would have to worry about that ever happening.

  2. c't? by Attackman · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Is that an adult magazine that happens to be anti-UN?
    "In the June issue of c't: girls, girls girls, and why we hate Kofi Annan!"

    --
    Ignore the rantings above. Poster is an idiot.
  3. Re: NetCraft by tomhudson · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    Has Netcraft confirmed it?
    ... let's check ...
    ping www.thepope.com
    PING www.thepope.com (83.138.187.17) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from 83.138.187.17: icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=101 ms
    64 bytes from 83.138.187.17: icmp_seq=2 ttl=49 time=96.9 ms

    --- www.thepope.com ping statistics ---
    2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1000ms
    rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 96.996/99.302/101.608/2.306 ms
    ping www.pope.com
    PING pope.com (64.82.100.17) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from user-1054p0h.biz.mindspring.com (64.82.100.17): icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=56.3 ms
    64 bytes from user-1054p0h.biz.mindspring.com (64.82.100.17): icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=62.0 ms

    --- pope.com ping statistics ---
    3 packets transmitted, 2 received, 33% packet loss, time 2002ms
    rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 56.329/59.198/62.068/2.879 ms
    So if you went to NetCraft, I'm sure they'll confirm thepope is still up and running ...