The Flash BIOS is an ideal home for a virus. One which would survive OS reinstallation / hard-disk replacement. One which would do nothing at all until X:XX, XX/XX/XX, when it clears the hapless EEPROM's contents entirely. One which would contain BIOS flash hook codes that would work with the most popular machines on the market (i.e. used by large institutions.) The manufacturers would realize that the missing Flash-enable jumper feature on most motherboards is a foolish lack of forethought. But it would be too late for millions of machines.-- dsm, Jul 24 2001 BIOS Virus Turns PCs into Paperweights. http://www.internet...news/news0721-4.htm [novox, Jul 24 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] MUAHAHAHA!
I've had this idea too --- I've wondered why Flash-based viruses aren't more prevalent. Maybe just because they're so much harder to write.-- wiml, Jul 24 2001 Sort of baked. See link.-- novox, Jul 24 2001 The specificity of BIOS code and the fact that not all operating systems allow software to interact with hardware are the primary reasons we don't see more of this stuff. Why write a virus that *could* only impact - say - 50,000 people (and more likely would only impact a fraction of that number)?-- phoenix, Jul 26 2001 [phoenix] Good point! This is why we are seeing so many email/internet based viruses/worms. It's a quick way to infect millions.-- novox, Jul 26 2001 [novox] Especially when Billy G. makes it so easy.-- phoenix, Jul 26 2001 Right....this is why I have Linux on my computer. As more and more programs become compatible with Linux, I will slowly convert and hopefully won't need Windows anymore.-- novox, Jul 26 2001 Viruses. Brilliant. Let's crash the damn economy. Great plan.-- RayfordSteele, Jan 25 2002 You really think the whole damn economy can be crashed with viruses? I would think if it were that easy someone would have done it by now, considering the things the economy does to people.-- LoriZ, Jan 26 2002 The whole damn economy can be crashed by somebody sneezing at the wrong time. The whole system is inherently unstable. America has just been lucky recently, that's all *evil grin*.-- sadie, Apr 22 2002 This could work.. There was acctually a BIOS that kept a program resident.. I can't remember, unfortunately, but no matter what version of windows you installed (even after formatting the HD), it would install this little bit of spyware right alongside it.-- JackandJohn, Mar 25 2003 random, halfbakery