Kaspersky Says 'The Equation Group' Is A Unique And Dangerous Threat

[bit_user]

You could change the PCB board of the hard drive if the firmware is hacked, but first clean the data on the drive of any malicious code so the firmware won't be hacked on the new PCB!

I think most drives store calibration data on the PCB, so you can't just swap it out and still have a working drive.

And if you do this with any drive featuring Secure Erase, the existing data on the drive will become unreadable.

 

[bit_user]

Bogus stats by another company under the new Kremlin's thumb.

Do you know there are ties, or are you just speculating? A lot of business people in Russia disagree with the Kremlin and are unhappy with the effects of his actions on the economy.

 

[bit_user]

How about just making the firmware static and physically impossible to rewrite? How many people actually download and update their firmware? Same goes with the motherboard and any other potential hiding place for viruses.

Cool idea. So, like when there was that SATA bug on Sandybridge boards, you just throw out the board and by a new one?

And I had to update the fw on some HDDs I wanted to use in a NAS, years ago.

When DVD burning was more common, people would upgrade the firmware on their DVD burners for better compatibility with newly released blank media.

And you have no idea how often the firmware on your GFX card is updated. The driver could be doing it under your nose, and you wouldn't know.

There are reasons this stuff is field-upgradable. Mostly, because so many people have been bit by bugs in these devices.

 

[hst101rox]

You could change the PCB board of the hard drive if the firmware is hacked, but first clean the data on the drive of any malicious code so the firmware won't be hacked on the new PCB!

I think most drives store calibration data on the PCB, so you can't just swap it out and still have a working drive.

And if you do this with any drive featuring Secure Erase, the existing data on the drive will become unreadable.

I think you can change out the PCB and have a working drive. Lots of hard drive PCBs on ebay you can buy. The calibration data can probably be re-calculated over time, like a car's fuel trim maps being wiped when you unplug the lead acid battery.

 

[bit_user]

I think you can change out the PCB and have a working drive. Lots of hard drive PCBs on ebay you can buy. The calibration data can probably be re-calculated over time, like a car's fuel trim maps being wiped when you unplug the lead acid battery.

If you lose the calibration data, then you won't be able to access the data on the disk. That's fine if you just want a working drive, but if you actually cared about that data...

 

[hst101rox]

I think you can change out the PCB and have a working drive. Lots of hard drive PCBs on ebay you can buy. The calibration data can probably be re-calculated over time, like a car's fuel trim maps being wiped when you unplug the lead acid battery.

If you lose the calibration data, then you won't be able to access the data on the disk. That's fine if you just want a working drive, but if you actually cared about that data...

There may be some truth to what you call 'calibration data'. I didn't know it existed but evidently modern drives are more complex than I thought. A secret location on the platters can store this calibration data, or on a chip on the PCB, so often times you need to desolder a chip from the old PCB onto the new PCB. Even if the 'calibration data' is on the platters because it might not be in the same location on the same model # of drive i guess.

Thanks for letting me know