Malware that destroys hardware?

[mlgtroller]

Has there ever been a case of a virus designed to somehow damage the hardware on a system, for example if a certain GPU (probably a very old one) was made so that is a certain extreme torture test program was run, it could damage the component.

 

Obviously there are no recent cases of this happening with video cards but perhaps something like this may have happened recently with something like a printer etc?

[Diederik_Gr]

All I ever heard of was those USB sticks that basically function like an EMP to your computer.

[Bittenfleax]

Urmm.. I don't think so?! I know there is MinerMalware which will use your systems resources to Mine for Bitcoins without you knowing (untill you see GPU and/or CPU is at %100) - I guess this has the same affect in a way.

[SIGSEGV]

Yes, CIH

Also, I'm pretty sure someone could make a piece of malware that overclocks your graphics card like mad until it catches fire or something

[brownninja97]

Yes there have been quite a few, most common screw with the drivers

[Comessy]

Yes my friend told me about one that turns off all your fans and overloads your system til it overheats

[mlgtroller]

Yes, CIH

Also, I'm pretty sure someone could make a piece of malware that overclocks your graphics card like mad until it catches fire or something

thanks just what i was looking for

 

jk, hopefully this only affects windows 95/98

[harrynowl]

I think there have been a few but they introduced things like execute disable bit which prevented certain memory areas being written to.

[KWelz]

I worked at a small ISP years ago (Think the era of Dialup).   We had some guys from Russia insert some code that flashed a bad BIOS onto multiple pieces of hardware.   Most were bricked because of it.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

Has there ever been a case of a virus designed to somehow damage the hardware on a system, for example if a certain GPU (probably a very old one) was made so that is a certain extreme torture test program was run, it could damage the component.

 

Obviously there are no recent cases of this happening with video cards but perhaps something like this may have happened recently with something like a printer etc?

 

Some malware can destory flash drives.

[Mattrixx]

I know ASUS's AI suite III (not worth it to use IMO) lets you change both the multiplier and, IIRC, the voltage of the CPU without going into the BIOS. Just take that, have it change the voltage to 2.0, and *cue magic blue smoke*.... Fried chip. 

 

There has to be a reason That something like that doesn't already exist though.

[SIGSEGV]

I know ASUS's AI suite III (not worth it to use IMO) lets you change both the multiplier and, IIRC, the voltage of the CPU without going into the BIOS. Just take that, have it change the voltage to 2.0, and *cue magic blue smoke*.... Fried chip. 

 

There has to be a reason That something like that doesn't already exist though.

Yeah, because it's not profitable. Nowadays malware authors are boring and are only in it for the money and don't make anything interesting.

[Mattrixx]

Yeah, because it's not profitable. Nowadays malware authors are boring and are only in it for the money and don't make anything interesting.

Well I understand that, I was just wondering why something like it wasn't made as a just plain dick move.

[SIGSEGV]

Well I understand that, I was just wondering why something like it wasn't made as a just plain dick move.

Because those malware authors don't really exist anymore. There's no real, technical reason for it

[Opcode]

You won't see Malware designed to kill hardware simply for the fact that most Malware won't target below Ring 3. As long as it's sitting on the software stack there's not a whole lot that it can do to hardware. It could find a route to overclock and over-volt your hardware and cause it to degrade faster. Although there's no one-click hardware destroying Malware (other than Nvidia's drivers). Hardware has a lot of built in fail-safes these days to also help avoid any kind of damage.