How “omnipotent” hackers tied to NSA hid for 14 years—and were found at last
Posted by UncommonSense 8 years, 6 months ago to Technology
BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): Buying a used computer? Remove the hard drive, take it apart & remove the disk(s) and using a screwdriver and hammer, shatter the disks & throw away. Buy a new one.
Using a military-grade disk wipe won't work. (Read the article to find out why)
Getting rid of your old computer? Sell w/o hard drive and dispose of the drive as described above.
The article is older (8 months) and is very deep & interesting. I learned new stuff today. Wow.
Using a military-grade disk wipe won't work. (Read the article to find out why)
Getting rid of your old computer? Sell w/o hard drive and dispose of the drive as described above.
The article is older (8 months) and is very deep & interesting. I learned new stuff today. Wow.
Don't doubt the NSA's complicity in such activity, but suspect that Kapersky could also have a hidden agenda.
We live in interesting times.
Infecting the firmware of a hard drive is pretty nifty. How the hell does one re-flash their hard drive firmware? They're pretty sneaky by hiding their BS within disp.dll. You could go ahead and eliminate that DLL but guess what then? You'll have lost your ability to see what's on your screen.
As an Information Security professional (I have a CISSP) reading all this makes me think Information Security is rather pointless, and is a joke. It is demoralizing. If they can force your hard drive to boot a (what I call) criminalized version of Winblows, what's the point of even trying to harden your system? F*ck it: no security, whatever the hell they to do, they're going to do.
I recommend having a huge supply of hard drives & replace them every other day. Destroy the old ones with a screwdriver & hammer. The SOB's at No Such Agency will get sick of having to reinfect the same computer over & over again. Obviously, it's not financially a good idea, but the other alternative is to avoid using the internet altogether for total computer security. That begs the question: why even own one then?