Hoax "virus?" Tell me I'm not on crack...

[BillGates]

I'm a member of another forum where I belive about 20 members were trolled into buying a video that I argue never existed. The seller has been stalling and saying he has had all these puter problems.

Now he's saying he got a "hardware virus" that has caused the trouble. I laughed and said that was ridiculous and was later pointed to the following link:

Hackology Hard Drive Killer

The Hard Drive Killer Pro series of programs offer one the ability to fully and permanently destroy all data on any given Dos or Win3.x/9x/NT/2000 based system. In other words, 90% of the computers world wide.

The program, once executed, will start eating up the hard drive, and/or infect and reboot the hard drive within a few seconds. After rebooting, all hard drives attached to the system would be formatted (in an unrecoverable manner) within only 1 to 2 seconds, irregardless of the size of the hard drive. The program has reported to have caused physical damage to some hard drives (on many occasions). However, the program was not in any way designed to cause physical damage, only data. The outcome of the program depends on the version you download. We suggest you download the full HDKP 4.0 version. Then, once you are familiar with HDKP, you may experiment with HDKP 5.0 Beta.


I laughed at that as well and even tried to download the files they are offering and all the links are dead. They think this dude is telling the truth and I think they got trolled hard.

I really don't believe a virus could ever do what this claims - it's amizing the government hasn't started to use the software to erase all their data in 2 seconds as opposed to their current wiping of 8 times or whatever it is!

Are they on crack for beliving this or am I on crack for arguing that it's totally fake??


P.S. -- I couldn't find any info on it at snopes.com, symantec security response, or even google.

 

[BillGates]

P.P.S. - These dudes can supposedly write amazing viruses but don't know that irregardless isn't a word, heh.

 

[vi edit]

Sounds to me like a hodgepodge of several different viruses.

There are viruses that *can* actually cause some physical harm, the most common being the cheyrnobyl (spelling?) virus. It *can* cause possibly overwrite the cmos of the motherboard.

Then there are other viruses that *can* just zap the FAT of the hard drive or just start writing zero's to the drive to fill it up. Both of which are messy.

*I've* never heard of anything like this, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Most recent viruses have focused on bringing down webservers and mailservers by overloading them with requests instead of just straight out chaos and destruction of deleting whole directories or hard drives.

 

[BillGates]

I wish we could download it - I have puters at work I would try it out on and think that it has to be fake. Virus writers don't usually seem to advertise their products like that.

 

[GoingUp]

I have heard of a virus that misreports your sector count on the HD. EG say you have 100 sectors, it tells you that you have 200 or so, and then it tries to format in teh 100+ range, sending the HD head past the end of the platter and destroying your drive....

 

[dighn]

i heard way back there were viruses that could physically damage a hd by moving/slamming the head in someway. bu ti think today's hds are immune from that

 

[vi edit]

There's a program on the IBM website called "Zap" that does just that - zaps a drive in litterally a second or two. Doesn't matter the size of the drive. I use it on machines that get a toasted FAT that even a format can't fix. Zap and then format.

It's a nice little program. Only about 20k in size and can easily be run by a .bat. I don't see any reason why a virus writer couldn't nest it into a program and run it.

 

[chiwawa626]

Cant a virus do some crap and zap a hardrive with a lowlevel format ?

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: chiwawa626
Cant a virus do some crap and zap a hardrive with a lowlevel format ?

You can't LLF in a matter of seconds. Just doesn't work that way.

 

[zsouthboy]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

Originally posted by: chiwawa626
Cant a virus do some crap and zap a hardrive with a lowlevel format ?

You can't LLF in a matter of seconds. Just doesn't work that way.

Exactly. Worst thing a virus can do nowadays is erase your hard drive.... and unless you have 39.7 gigs of pr0n on it, heh, its no big deal for the average computer enthusiast who has all his important pr0n, i mean files, backed up... i mean hey, its probably time for a clean install of windows anyway.

 

[Sketcher]

FYI: HDKP 4 & 5, as well as a host of others are readily available to even the marginally google proficient.

But if you're spending more time asking everyone else about it than looking it up yourself... You shouldn't be allowed to download it in the first place. Uh, let me rephrase that - yes, google and download the HDKP4.zip and unzip it onto your main computer. Run the .exe you find there. Then ask a friend if you can use their computer to post your experience here in ATOT (for those of you who don't get the point of this sarcasm - ah, never mind)

The LLF argument is irrelevent regarding HDKP. To describe the process will put this thread in the realm of locks and bagels so if you really want to know, do some google - if you really believe the peeps here who say it can't be done or that someone's pulling your leg - just download what you find and give it a go - just have another HD ready to go.

As for the perp who claims he can't deliver because of a virus - whatever. Not my bag. Does HDKP work? Yes. As for the title of this thread "Hoax "virus?" Tell me I'm not on crack...". Whether or not I tell you that you are on crack - has nothing to do with whether or not you are on crack.

P.S. -- I couldn't find any info on it at snopes.com, symantec security response, or even google.

eh, yep - you're on crack. Easily 7 pages on google, 12 if you read multiple languages or use google translater. Granted, some of the pages are ghosts - but I downloaded and dupe checked the new downs with my working copy and it's all mop-n-glo.

Oh, it might help to quit looking for a virus. HDKP isn't a virus, it's a Trojan.

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: zsouthboy

Originally posted by: vi_edit

Originally posted by: chiwawa626
Cant a virus do some crap and zap a hardrive with a lowlevel format ?

You can't LLF in a matter of seconds. Just doesn't work that way.

Exactly. Worst thing a virus can do nowadays is erase your hard drive.... and unless you have 39.7 gigs of pr0n on it, heh, its no big deal for the average computer enthusiast who has all his important pr0n, i mean files, backed up... i mean hey, its probably time for a clean install of windows anyway.

I need to do back-ups

 

[BillGates]

Update: I found another copy of it and Norton 2003 detects it as a trojan. I'm going to try it out on an old PC and see what happens just for the heck of it. I have no doubt there could be damage done to file tables or whatever but physical damage sounds kinda doubtful. I'll update this thread if I remember but I may not do it for a while... all my old boxes have Linux on them now and I doubt they'd be affected by a windows trojan.