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Dell Ships Infected Motherboards
An anonymous reader writes "Computer maker Dell is warning that some of its server motherboards have been delivered to customers carrying an unwanted extra: computer malware. It could be confirmation that the 'hardware trojans' long posited by some security experts are indeed a real threat."
I have not studied computer science, firmware trojans nor antivirus. Could someone explain to me:
1) How do firmware trojans work?
2) Are they OS independent?
3) What information can they send and/or damage can they do to a system?
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Just because you have a third party manufacture your hardware doesn't mean you shouldn't do your own QA. After all, it's your reputation on the line, not that of the nameless sweatshop contractor.
So, yeah, this is thoroughly Dell's fault for not caring about their brand or reputation.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Incorrect. It's firmware, meaning it's software in a FLASH or EEPROM on rare occasions. That means it can be re-written by applications that know how to talk to it. Writing to a FLASH is not hard or a secret, in fact I wrote a self destruct years ago to screw with a kid that kept trying to break into our dial up server. It was called "Router Passwords.exe" and it simply tried to write FF FF FF to the beginning of the Bios flash chip for several different common motherboards.
it worked, the kid never tried to connect again after he downloaded that bomb.
If it was a ROM, my trick would not work as you can not update or write to ROM's.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.