TheLipTV | –
“Malware in hard drive firmware is the latest, and most sophisticated spying tool the NSA is suspected of using, with Kaspersky Labs of Russia suggesting that the “Equation Group” of hackers have infiltrated the innermost workings of computers dating back to 2001. The “Equation Group,” have long been suspected of being intimately connected to the NSA, and the wide reaching spying malware is said to require source code from hard drive manufacturers. The ubiquitous firmware that is used in virtually every computer since 2001 could create an unescapable spy net that we discuss on the Lip News with Mark Sovel and Elliot Hill.”
TheLipTV: “Firmware Malware, the ‘Equation Group’ & NSA Spying”
It may be very useful to hear from hard drive (HDD) OEMS
• Seagate
• Maxtor
• Western Digital
• Fujitsu
• IBM and other HDD OEMs who produced the firmware for their products which may have been compromised?
Bear in mind multi-million gaming consoles also use HDD. Not to mention the dubious “Cloud” which currently employs hundreds of thousands (millions?) of HDD units on a day-to-day basis.
The average lifespan of an HDD is about three years (YMMV) and supposedly this “infection” is part of the overreaction to 9/11.
The Russian-based Kaspersky is alluding to an on-going effort which could ensnare hundreds of millions of HDD units during the past 14 years yet no one but one anti-virus company has publicized this?
We need to know a lot more about the claims made by Kaspersky before FUD takes a toll.
In the mean time, individuals and companies may consider switching out their spinning-rust units (HDD) for solid state drives (SSD)?
Just to keep our paranoia at the proper level.