On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 08:08:32 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Feb 14, 10:38*am, wrote:
On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 05:37:38 -0800 (PST), "

wrote:
*PCs have been hacked on a
large scale in some sophisticated *attacks in a way that
damaged them so that they had to be replaced.

Huh?

Maybe the software had to be reloaded but the hardware was not
damaged. I understand that for a lot of idiots getting a virus (or
simply a bunch of bloatware) on the machine causes them to just buy a
new one, preloaded but if they had their head a quarter inch out of
their ass they would format and *reload the one they have.

It's not farfetched. I assume you've heard of folks that
decided to update their bios and wound up with a MB that
was kaput? The critical boot-up code is typicaly stored
today in flash memory. That makes it possible to do
upgrades, if it becomes essential. But I've never done
one for precisely that reason. If something goes wrong,
it could be bye, bye MB. I guess the other factor was
any such bios upgrade wasn't doing much for me, my
PC was working ok.

Now you would think there would be part of the Flash
that is secure and can't be overwritten by software
when updating the bios.
Not sure if they do that on some PCs, or not. But
the point is that it's a real problem. And I remember
hearing about a specific attack from either hackers or
foreign govt that did render thousands of PCs kaput
so that they had to be scrapped.

My MB has a dual BIOS. If flashing fails and corrupts the EPROM it can
be restored at boot. Only one can be written to for flashing
purposes. The backup BIOS cannot.

"...A dual BIOS is a computer motherboard that contains two BIOS
chips, a main BIOS and a backup BIOS. This motherboard setup helps a
motherboard recover from any issues that may happen during a BIOS
update, helps protect the BIOS from any potential virus, and helps
with any other issues that may arise with the BIOS."