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What you should know about firmware viruses!

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David B.

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Feb 12, 2024, 3:06:24 AMFeb 12
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What you should know about firmware viruses:-

By Leslie Meredith, Tech Matters - | Aug 8, 2015

Firmware viruses are among the most dangerous to your computer, whether you
have a Windows PC or a Mac. They’re hard to detect and even harder to remove.
News of a test worm built to attack Macs was unveiled at this week’s Black Hat
security conference in Las Vegas, showing that when it comes to firmware, both
operating systems are vulnerable.

Understand that this is a laboratory virus created by researchers to show
manufacturers how their machines could be at risk to an attack. By sharing the
research, it is hoped that manufacturers and software developers will fix the
identified weak points. In this particular case, Thunderstruck 2 was shown to
be able to allow a firmware attack to spread automatically from one Mac to
another without a network connection. It is the first such experimental virus
of its kind.

However, there’s no magic here. While the malware doesn’t use a network
connection, it must be transferred from one computer to another via a
peripheral device. And more importantly, the original infection enters a
computer in the typical way — by the user clicking on a malicious link in a
phishing email. Once infected, the virus waits until it detects a peripheral
device, transfers the virus in seconds and so the spread begins. In the test
case, an infected Apple Ethernet adapter was used. The researchers have
alerted Apple of its findings and the company is working on patches to
eliminate the vulnerabilities.

Firmware is present in most computerized devices. It is a type of software
embedded in a piece of hardware. Manufacturers use firmware updates to add new
features to devices. The problem stems from the fact that firmware is outside
the machine’s operating system, which means it’s outside the reach of most
antivirus programs. An infection can be nearly impossible for the typical
computer user to remedy. Even wiping your computer won’t eliminate malware in
firmware. When you do a clean install, you’re replacing your operating system,
but the firmware remains. The only way to get rid of a firmware virus is to
reprogram or replace the chip that contains the firmware.

“For most users that’s really a throw-your-machine-away kind of situation,”
Xeno Kovah, one of the researchers who designed the worm, said in an interview
with Wired. “Most people and organizations don’t have the wherewithal to
physically open up their machine and electrically reprogram the chip.”

Firmware is also particularly vulnerable to attack because most hardware
makers, PCs and Macs alike, usually use much of the same firmware code and
it’s often left unencrypted. While computer manufacturers could implement
protections, they would require a substantial investment. But this type of
malware is also very expensive to create and therefore, quite rare. Still,
it’s worth taking steps to protect your computer.

One way to reduce your risk is to buy peripherals like Ethernet adapters and
SSD cards from only reputable manufacturers. Don’t use USB drives from an
unknown source — even those you pick up from a conference where they are often
handed out like candy. Don’t allow someone else to use any of these small
devices on your computer.

Don’t let your computer out of your sight while traveling. Security firm
Kaspersky has noted state-sponsored attacks at airports and border crossings,
dubbing such malicious stunts as “evil maid” attacks. A traveler’s computer is
removed for inspection and a peripheral device is used to infect it. Unless
you’re a spy or traveling in very risky countries, I wouldn’t worry too much
about this one.

But a very real and common pitfall is the phishing email. If you receive an
email that contains links or attachments, don’t click or open them unless you
are confident of the source. Likewise, avoid visiting unknown websites that
can contain malicious code that can be transferred to your computer simply by
opening the page — known as a drive-by attack. Always use secure and unique
passwords for your accounts. Keep your computer up-to-date and remove any
software that you don’t use to reduce possible entry points for malware.

Leslie Meredith has been writing about and reviewing personal technology for
the past six years. She has designed and manages several international
websites. As a mom of four, value, usefulness and online safety take priority.
Have a question? Email Leslie at asklesli...@gmail.com.

Ref:-
https://www.standard.net/news/business/2015/aug/08/what-you-should-know-about-firmware-viruses/

David B.

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Feb 12, 2024, 12:12:06 PMFeb 12
to
On 12 Feb 2024 at 16:46:39 GMT, "Tyrone" <no...@none.none> wrote:

> On Feb 12, 2024 at 3:06:20 AM EST, "David B." <b...@nomail.afraid.org> AKA The
> Babbling Idiot wrote:
>
>> What you should know about firmware viruses:-
>>
>> By Leslie Meredith, Tech Matters - | Aug 8, 2015
>
> This is ancient news, dipshit.
>
> Not to mention that "firmware viruses" were very rare, very difficult to
> install and difficult to spread. So they were not very effective and basically
> were a waste of everyone's time.

In my email to Mark Allan I said .....

On a purely non-scientific basis, I have been researching malware since 2005.
That was when I was scammed of £245.00 by someone who claimed that I had
purchased a mobile phone from them. It was a fraudulent transaction but it had
been paid by PayPal. I took up the matter with my credit card company (Marks &
Spencer) but, as I was away from home on my narrowboat, by the time I received
the requisite paperwork it was outside of the 100 day limit for them to
assist. In consequence, I had to take up matters with PayPal directly but they
wouldn't conduct matters electronically - they said the Internet wasn't
sufficiently safe! So the matter was dealt with by snail mail over the
following few months. Eventually, PayPal credited my account with £ 245 and
that should have been the end of the matter.

However, on the very same day that I was awarded my funds, I received an email
from the 'aggrieved party' who claimed that they HAD sold me a 'phone and
wanted the £245 which had been reclaimed from them by PayPal. After exchanging
a number of emails, they suggested that it appeared to be nice where I lived
and threatened to come and collect the money I 'owed' personally!. That is
when I informed the police and ended up discussing matters with the then High
Tech Crime Unit. The police suggested that I destroy my computer, buy a new
one and then learn as much as I possibly could about all the bad things which
go on on the Internet! I've been doing the latter ever since!

You might not be surprised to learn that, for a while, I used AOL as my ISP
before switching to BT. That's why I still have AOL set-up disks!

I did send a couple of the 'rogue' files - which had been found by ClamXAV -
to Virus Total, with these results:-

https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/ecedcf39d03c66912e5a3dc0732bdf75004d4b2db1e8e3e4833c56b867debda6/detection

https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/176a7d6d77159920ddfcc470ffe807b51c6de12070f93237b35437107c33963f/detection

Now that I know how to do this, I shall endeavour to send the four separate
files to your team of people "who work on the virus definitions".

David B.

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Feb 12, 2024, 12:28:13 PMFeb 12
to
On 12 Feb 2024 at 17:19:20 GMT, "Tyrone" <no...@none.none> wrote:

> On Feb 12, 2024 at 12:12:02 PM EST, "David B." <b...@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>
>> On 12 Feb 2024 at 16:46:39 GMT, "Tyrone" <no...@none.none> wrote:
>>
>>> On Feb 12, 2024 at 3:06:20 AM EST, "David B." <b...@nomail.afraid.org> AKA The
>>> Babbling Idiot wrote:
>>>
>>>> What you should know about firmware viruses:-
>>>>
>>>> By Leslie Meredith, Tech Matters - | Aug 8, 2015
>>>
>>> This is ancient news, dipshit.
>>>
>>> Not to mention that "firmware viruses" were very rare, very difficult to
>>> install and difficult to spread. So they were not very effective and basically
>>> were a waste of everyone's time.
>>
>> In my email to Mark Allan I said .....
>
> What does ANY of that have to do with "firmware viruses"?

Just like what's said in the article I posted .......

"*The police suggested that I destroy my computer and buy a new
one*".

FromTheRafters

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Feb 12, 2024, 1:24:18 PMFeb 12
to
on 2/12/2024, David B. supposed :
One could say he was half right.

David B.

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Feb 12, 2024, 2:48:33 PMFeb 12
to
On 12 Feb 2024 at 18:24:06 GMT, "FromTheRafters" <F...@nomail.afraid.org>
wrote:
WHO was/is "half right"?

David Kennedy

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Feb 14, 2024, 6:17:40 AMFeb 14
to
On 12/02/2024 16:46, Tyrone wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2024 at 3:06:20 AM EST, "David B." <b...@nomail.afraid.org> AKA The
> Babbling Idiot wrote:
>
>> What you should know about firmware viruses:-
>>
>> By Leslie Meredith, Tech Matters - | Aug 8, 2015
>
> This is ancient news, dipshit.
>
> Not to mention that "firmware viruses" were very rare, very difficult to
> install and difficult to spread. So they were not very effective and basically
> were a waste of everyone's time.
>
> Just like you.
>
> But of course, since you have no fucking clue what firmware is, how it is used
> and what it does, you don't understand a word of this stupid article. You
> just copy/paste it, assuming it is somehow relevant.
>

+-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
==================================================================

David B.

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Feb 16, 2024, 4:54:18 PMFeb 16
to
On 14 Feb 2024 at 11:17:27 GMT, "David Kennedy" <davidke...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> +-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
> | PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
> | FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
> | | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
> | Thank you, | ( (_) )
> | Management | /`-vvv-'\
> +-------------------+ / \
> | | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
> | | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
> @x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
> \||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
> \||/ | | | (______Y______)
> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
> ==================================================================

Answer this, son!

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/f/172/mac-os/

David B.

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Feb 16, 2024, 5:06:36 PMFeb 16
to
On 14 Feb 2024 at 11:17:27 GMT, "David Kennedy" <davidke...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> +-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
> | PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
> | FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
> | | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
> | Thank you, | ( (_) )
> | Management | /`-vvv-'\
> +-------------------+ / \
> | | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
> | | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
> @x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
> \||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
> \||/ | | | (______Y______)
> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
> ==================================================================


Your illustration is totally distorted - here's how it SHOULD look:-

http://magelore.de

HTH

John Hill

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Feb 17, 2024, 4:03:02 AMFeb 17
to
Thank you for that! I had suspected something of the sort but TBH couldn't be
bothered to investigate.

Takes me back to the days when people produced elaborate and very effective
images on line printers and ImageWriters.

Old John.

--
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

TimS

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Feb 17, 2024, 5:06:53 AMFeb 17
to
On 17 Feb 2024 at 09:03:00 GMT, "John Hill" <watco...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On 16 Feb 2024 at 22:06:33 GMT, "David B." <b...@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>
>> On 14 Feb 2024 at 11:17:27 GMT, "David Kennedy" <davidke...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> +-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
>>> | PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
>>> | FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
>>> | | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
>>> | Thank you, | ( (_) )
>>> | Management | /`-vvv-'\
>>> +-------------------+ / \
>>> | | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
>>> | | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
>>> @x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
>>> \||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
>>> \||/ | | | (______Y______)
>>> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
>>> ==================================================================
>>
>>
>> Your illustration is totally distorted - here's how it SHOULD look:-

Looked perfectly OK here.

--
Tim

Jörg Lorenz

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Feb 17, 2024, 5:24:04 AMFeb 17
to
Am 17.02.24 um 11:06 schrieb TimS:
Same here!
--
"De gustibus non est disputandum."

David B.

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Feb 17, 2024, 8:58:37 AMFeb 17
to
On 17 Feb 2024 at 09:03:00 GMT, "John Hill" <watco...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Thank you for responding, Old John! :-)

Could you please, for the benefit of others smirking here, provide a
screenshot showing the distorted image which you seem to have seen?

Thanks if you will.

--
David

WolfFan

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Feb 17, 2024, 11:27:18 AMFeb 17
to
On Feb 17, 2024, TimS wrote
(in article <l3bepq...@mid.individual.net>):
ASCII art was designed for use with monospaced fonts, like Courier, Courier
New, and (what I use) Lucidia Typewriter Std. (the ASCII art was fine at my
end, too.) Proportional fonts were not a thing except when using GUIs back
when usenet started, and not all GUIs. And usenet was plain text (no HTML
bullshit) using monospaced fonts, as Crom demands. If viewed using
proportional fonts, there will be problems. Not least being the displeasure
of Crom.

I suspect that Our David, being an idiot and an infidel, is not using a
monospaced font. In other words, his problem is entirely of his own creation.
As usual.

WolfFan

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Feb 17, 2024, 11:46:50 AMFeb 17
to
On Feb 17, 2024, John Hill wrote
(in article <uqpso4$b8s5$1...@dont-email.me>):
You’re using Usenapp. Usenapp’s default is ’system font’. The system
font on most Macs is one of the Lucida fonts, usually Lucida Grande. This is
a proportional font; characters are different sizes horizontally, the
narrowest is ‘i’, the widest is ‘M’. ASCII art has problems with
proportinal fonts. It works much better with monospaced fonts, where all
characters are the same size horizontally, such as Courier, Courier New, and
Lucidia Typewriter Std. (I have the Hog set to use Lucida Typewriter Std.)

In Ye Olden Daze, text on screen was almost always in a monospaced font. In
Ye Ancient Daze, text from a teletype was always a monospaced font.

If you change the default (Preferences/Interface, look for the pull-down menu
showing ’system font’) then ASCII art can be viewed in all its proper
glory.

Don’t pay attention to Our David. He’s an idiot.

John Hill

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Feb 18, 2024, 4:54:35 AMFeb 18
to
I don't see the point. Others have explained the phenomenon very clearly, so
anyone who *really* wants to see the proper version only has to copy it and
paste it into, say, TextEdit and view it in a monospaced fit.

Old John.
--
You're not an old dog until you can't learn new tricks.

Theo

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Feb 18, 2024, 5:15:47 AMFeb 18
to
John Hill <watco...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I don't see the point. Others have explained the phenomenon very clearly, so
> anyone who *really* wants to see the proper version only has to copy it and
> paste it into, say, TextEdit and view it in a monospaced fit.

The graphic was of 'do not feed the troll'. Which you are feeding by
repeatedly replying to his posts. He next tries to spin it by 'helpfully'
rendering the graphic that is directed at himself.

Please just put him in your killfile like everyone else has.

Theo

David B.

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Feb 18, 2024, 6:46:35 AMFeb 18
to
I agree ...... now!

> Others have explained the phenomenon very clearly, so
> anyone who *really* wants to see the proper version only has to copy it and
> paste it into, say, TextEdit and view it in a monospaced fit.

Now understood. :-)

> Old John.

Have a grand day!

--
David
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