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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."

1 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. I love how they plan to force apple to comply by mal0rd · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Apple also sees no need for action - to load a kernel extension it is necessary to enter the administrator's password, the company noted. We have come to an agreement with Apple to the effect that we will program a demonstration of the damaging action and make it available to Apple. Perhaps someone in the United States will change his or her mind once he or she can only access their hard disk after entering correctly "c't Magazin für Computertechnik" (including the umlaut!).