The Facebook Virus?
closed account (S6k9GNh0)
I've been hearing of a virus going around on Facebook that (bear with me here) apparently formats your hardrive to contain nothing and then destroys your motherboard. This sounds like grade A bullshit but just the other day, my teachers laptop went kaput and she apparently took it too (a data specialist?) who said that the hardrive contained nothing and the laptop would not attempt to start while the PSU was still intact signaling that the motherboard went out. I don't know if she's lying or what but this sounds unlikely to the extreme level. Any input as to what my be happening?
closed account (S6k9GNh0)
That very well may be true that there is a virus. I'm 99% sure my idiotic parents have probably already attained this virus and since I run a Windows machine on the same network, I'm hardening security to make sure nothing goes loose (like before). However, these pages do not describe what type of mayhem it creates. It's a trojan and a trojan's objective usually does not concern destroying the computer (since there is no benefit from it).
NOTE: YAY! I passed 1000 posts.
NOTE: YAY! I passed 1000 posts.
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I'm glad, to be perfectly honest. I strongly dislike facebook. Finally crackers have done some good in the world.
@computerquip,
Try Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. It's a ridiculous name and it doesn't sound legit, but it is.
@computerquip,
Try Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. It's a ridiculous name and it doesn't sound legit, but it is.
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closed account (S6k9GNh0)
I honestly hate all of the befriending online portals. I'm sick of people telling me to get on myspace or facebook.
I ****ing hate Facebook. And Chat Roulete. And Twitter. And Craigslist. And Myspace. And Dailybooth. And Blogspot. And most Forums. And Facebook. And the viruses that come with them.
-Albatross
-Albatross
| I'm sick of people telling me to get on myspace or facebook. |
Exactly! It's much more effort than it's worth. I tried myspace and hated it. I had no freedom over the layout of my web page -- you see people with really elaborate layouts and you think "Wow! How did they do that?!". Well, the answer is that they didn't. They google searched ~"awesome myspace layouts" and copy and pasted it.
I'm no great shakes at creating websites (I know HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP but I suck at the design element of it) but at least when I try, I write the code myself...
I kind of like facebook. I enjoy being able to talk to people who I haven't seen since third grade, or my cousins who live in Oregon while I live in Missouri.
Myspace is awful.
And the only forums I ever go on are this one and 4chan.
Myspace is awful.
And the only forums I ever go on are this one and 4chan.
Facebook is... a larger security hole than system(). Pretty much everyone can access any data you put on it.
And for me, there's nothing really interesting there. That's why I personally don't like it.
-Albatross
And for me, there's nothing really interesting there. That's why I personally don't like it.
-Albatross
To answer the OP, yes this is possible. Do we know about it? Based on the responses here and my own feelings about social networking I would say no.
Can you catch a virus from Facebook? Yes, there is little or nothing protecting you from code that your idiot friends downloaded and pasted to their site.
Have there been viruses on Facebook in the past? Yes you bet there have been and are now!
Can a virus format your HDD? Yes of course it could. This can be done as simple as a system command on an unprotected computer, it's only slightley more difficult on even a protected computer.
Can a virus destroy your HDD? I've been asked about this a couple of times and I would always tell people no, software cannot damage hardware like that. But I was of course lieing to keep them calm. If a program constantly reads and writes garbage data to a HDD and kept it spinning up and down when it would otherwise be idle then it would prematuraly age the device and it would stop functioning long before its time.
Can a virus destroy your motherboard? Yes, not physically the way you might be thinking but it can flash the BIOS into an invalid state. There is also an uber-hot concept that I've been reading about called a firmware resident virus; this nasty little bugger writes to the extra space on the ROM present on your hardware and keeps reinstalling it self or doing what ever from there. These aren't too common because they have to be targeted to a specific piece of hardware or family and that isn't very efficent.
Your teachers "data specialist" probably screwed something up or charged them for work that they didn't do so of course data wasn't recovered. I've pulled data from drives that have physically stopped spinning, I had a Master Electrician and a former USAF Electronics specialist to help me but we did it.
Can you catch a virus from Facebook? Yes, there is little or nothing protecting you from code that your idiot friends downloaded and pasted to their site.
Have there been viruses on Facebook in the past? Yes you bet there have been and are now!
Can a virus format your HDD? Yes of course it could. This can be done as simple as a system command on an unprotected computer, it's only slightley more difficult on even a protected computer.
Can a virus destroy your HDD? I've been asked about this a couple of times and I would always tell people no, software cannot damage hardware like that. But I was of course lieing to keep them calm. If a program constantly reads and writes garbage data to a HDD and kept it spinning up and down when it would otherwise be idle then it would prematuraly age the device and it would stop functioning long before its time.
Can a virus destroy your motherboard? Yes, not physically the way you might be thinking but it can flash the BIOS into an invalid state. There is also an uber-hot concept that I've been reading about called a firmware resident virus; this nasty little bugger writes to the extra space on the ROM present on your hardware and keeps reinstalling it self or doing what ever from there. These aren't too common because they have to be targeted to a specific piece of hardware or family and that isn't very efficent.
Your teachers "data specialist" probably screwed something up or charged them for work that they didn't do so of course data wasn't recovered. I've pulled data from drives that have physically stopped spinning, I had a Master Electrician and a former USAF Electronics specialist to help me but we did it.
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I have a facebook, but that's only because I was in marching band and that's how we all kept in touch after the season was over. and after the seniors graduated.
| If a program constantly reads and writes garbage data to a HDD and kept it spinning up and down when it would otherwise be idle |
| writes to [...] the ROM |
Sorry helios, but power save mode for devices including the HDD are controlled by the OS. Display Properties -> Screen Saver -> Power for those of us using XP. I guess seeking could kill them to, I never thought about that. I wonder which one would wear out first on your average market level drive?
No I know what ROM stands for, I just didn't think I needed to write out EEPROM when refering to the firmware. I was lazy, shoot me.
No I know what ROM stands for, I just didn't think I needed to write out EEPROM when refering to the firmware. I was lazy, shoot me.
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Don't get me wrong, I was just screwing around. I often forget it's hard to tell that I'm almost never serious. Expecialy on the internet.
| Display Properties -> Screen Saver -> Power for those of us using XP. |
| No I know what ROM stands for, I just didn't think I needed to write out EEPROM when refering to the firmware. |
Spinning down then spinning up then spinning down ad infinum after X idle time would be less detectable by the user. It isn't instantly destructive, what it does is beat on the drive needlessly causing it to wear down much faster then it normally would.
Flash BIOSes, yeah kind of you're on the right thought track, that's one of them but your CD-ROM has firmware to. The manufactorers didn't build it to be perfect right off the bat, look at how many versions there are of Blu-ray. These devices have extra room set aside for updates where malicious data could be theoretically stored.
Flash BIOSes, yeah kind of you're on the right thought track, that's one of them but your CD-ROM has firmware to. The manufactorers didn't build it to be perfect right off the bat, look at how many versions there are of Blu-ray. These devices have extra room set aside for updates where malicious data could be theoretically stored.
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Anyone remember the days when you use to see kids playing in the park and football fields? I haven't seen anyone in those sort of places in a long time. Sad really.
That's because everyone is here's making programs so the kids can play simulations of playing in the park.