Which AMD motherboard has hardware jumper settings to prevent BIOS update?

[hasu]

I am wondering if there is a motherboard for AMD (AM2 and above) CPU which has jumper settings to prevent BIOS update?

TIA

 

[Billb2]

Why?

Sometimes they're necessary.

 

[hasu]

To prevent BIOS viruses

 

[Billb2]

...and how lomg have you had this problem with paanoia?

A good AV (I like Avira) and a firewall should be sufficient.

 

[hasu]

>> ...and how lomg have you had this problem with paanoia?
Since my machine was infected by a couple of severe virus attacks since last winter. And I do believe that prevention is better than cure, except for flu shots

>>A good AV (I like Avira) and a firewall should be sufficient.
I don't believe that commercial anti-virus software catch all 'viruses'.
That being said, do you really have an input to my question?

 

[Billb2]

While there are BIOS editors "in the wild", and I suppose someone could write something that would change BIOS settings, but all you'd have to do is a reset and reenter your settings. I'm not aware of any way to add damaging code to a BIOS. They are very limited in what their code can do.
I've never heard of such an option on a motherboard.
I suppose you could just buy half a dozen BIOS chips and replace yours if it gets "attacked".

 

[arcas]

Seeing how flash chips have a limited write lifespan, it's at least conceivable that a destructive virus could repeatedly write and rewrite garbage to the BIOS flash area until the flash can no longer be updated.

 

[v8envy]

It would be easier for a flash virus to simply set the CPU voltage to around 2 volts and wait a little bit. Come to think of it, with many boards supporting software voltage and frequency settings it wouldn't even take a BIOS flashing virus to target a specific board & CPU.

 

[NXIL]

There is, in fact, some cause for concern.

First link is from 2001....

http://www.google.com/search?h...&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&hs=XkI&ei=zsi6SvPFOIrgtgPuysiPCQ&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=BIOS+security+risk&spell=1

http://74.125.155.132/search?q...gl=us&client=firefox-a

Feb 2009:

http://www.infosecurity-magazi...n-intel-bios-security/

And:

http://threatpost.com/blogs/re...nt-bios-attack-methods

That was the rather sobering message delivered by a pair of security researchers from Core Security Technologies in a talk at the CanSecWest conference on methods for infecting the BIOS with persistent code that will survive reboots and reflashing attempts. Anibal Sacco and Alfredo Ortega (above) demonstrated a method for patching the BIOS with a small bit of code that gave them conplete control of the machine. And the best part is, the method worked on a Windows machine, a PC running OpenBSD and another running VMware Player.

It's pretty scary that it can work with OpenBSD.

And:

http://www.sophos.com/blogs/sophoslabs/v/post/5716

So: it's out there.

NX

 

[Zap]

In other news the Earth is in danger of comets, asteroids and other cosmic debris.

Billb2, with some people the more you deny something, the more they believe that it exists and that you are just trying to sweep the danger under the rug.

hasu, perhaps your best bet would be a motherboard with "dual BIOS." Many enthusiast boards have such a feature so that the BIOS can be totally trashed and yet can be recovered.

 

[hasu]

Originally posted by: NXIL

So: it's out there.

NX

At least once I "fried" a motherboard in an attempt to flash new BIOS.
I prefer, socketed BIOS chips like old days. It would be better to have one socketed BIOS chip than soldered dual bios.

Edit: Zap, my reply should have been a response to your post!

I asked this question, because I read about BIOS viruses recently.

 

[NXIL]

In other news the Earth is in danger of comets, asteroids and other cosmic debris.

Actually, this is true as well.

Odds in any human lifetime? Low.

Yellowstone cauldron: it blows repeatedly, but, odds in any human lifetime? Low.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic....stone/achenbach-text/2

H1N1? Probably low. Odds of a really nasty virus strain, 1918 Flu type, at some point: very high, but, hard to say when it will appear. Within our lifetimes? Not unlikely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

Climate change: very high risk of disruptions and distortions in the economy, 50-100 year time frame from what I can tell.

BIOS virus? Odds are low, and unless you are Bernie Madoff or Dr. Evil with a BILLION dollar on line account, risk is low. Besides, we should have backups to use in the event of some untoward event--off site, just in case Yellowstone does blow, sending Yogi Bear's molecules into the ozone layer.

I forgot: the ozone layer is still thinning--it was getting better for a while, but is on the way out again. Ultraviolet C radiation kills everything, and without the ozone layer, it gets through.

Oh: and the magnetic field. Geomagnetic field reversal seems to be happening right now:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

Some speculate that a greatly diminished magnetic field during a reversal period will expose the surface of the earth to a substantial and potentially damaging increase in cosmic radiation.

Russia really has a doomsday machine: think Dr. Stangelove.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroo...ine-its-still-working/

Strange ant species are invading the US. Other invasive species: here's a database:

http://www.invasivespecies.net...=-1&ei=-1&fr=1&sts=sss

Fresh water supplies are shrinking; peak oil has probably already happened. And, since this is somewhat tongue in cheek, I won't even mention hunger on this planet, which is not funny at all.

BIOS virus? Bring it on.

But he did ask, it is real, and to be quite honest, it's right up there with 45 vs 32 nanometer tech and some other rather esoteric tech trivia discussed on AT.

NX


PS:

Earthquake in California. Earthquake on Juan de Fuqua plate: both are coming.

Another Mt. St. Helens, which wasn't that big a blow up: coming.

Tainted food supply. High fructuose corn syrup....Teletubbies.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: hasu
I asked this question, because I read about BIOS viruses recently.

People will write on just about anything, be it alien abductions, government mind control, Bill Gates paying you money to forward an email or BIOS viruses.

My point is that with all the other things out there to worry about, why worry about BIOS viruses?

I'm 100000000000000x more concerned with other things, such as how well (or not) the motherboard manufacturer stands behind their product. This is a real problem. How many threads do we see about "OMG Gigabyte took a month to RMA" or "Asus sent me back a broken board" or "EVGA said I voided warranty because of bent pins" and other such horror stories?

 

[Absolution75]

Just to reinforce everything people have already said. . .

A BIOS virus is about the last thing you ever have to worry about. . . There are way too many different bios by many different companies. . . If you though mac's didn't get virus's through obscurity. . .just think about how rare your BIOS is.


Think about it, most people use OEM pc's, so for simplicity sake, lets say that people who buy retail parts are 25% (probably way overstated).

From that 25%, there are two different major BIOS formats (Award BIOS/Pheonix I believe). So your down to about 12.5%. . .

Every motherboard has a specific bios. . . Now your target for the virus is almost obscure.

Now, every single different BIOS revision (most boards have probably 3-5 different BIOS revisions, maybe more) has different offsets for certain things (voltage/speed/etc). Now the target is miniscuel.

Think of your BIOS as your own personal mini OS. . . no one cares to infect it because its way too much work for virtually no gain.