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On Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 9:33 PM R0b0t1 <<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:r030t1@gmail.com">r030t1@gmail.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:r030t1@gmail.com"><mailto:r030t1@gmail.com></a>> wrote:
Is anyone aware of either HDDs or SSDs that have firmware which is
user modifiable? Even flash chips, "bare," as used in USB flash
drives, or eMMC, as used in phones, can have storage controllers.</pre>
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I don't know much detail, but I do remember half a dozen years ago
(more or less) having a couple of Seagate HDDs go bad in a home
system: I sent one to a professional place to recover data (It had
been in use just a few days, no good backup program in place yet,
:>( ) and they diagnosed it as corrupted firmware. I was told
they had already received a bunch of Seagate drives that had failed
in the same way, that malware rewriting the firmware in the drive
was suspected. I do know that firmware upgrades were being shipped
to users in some group, so the ability to write was certainly there.
Later I even found online a program that claimed it could check for
authenticity of your drive firmware and arrange to install a
corrected version. So as always there is "whom do you trust"...<br>
<br>
Remember when easily upgradeable BIOS proms for PCs first hit the
scene? At first you had to switch an on-board jumper to allow
writing, but maybe that was too much work or the extra three cents
for hardware was too expensive. This seems to me still a big
vulnerability!<br>
<br>
Maybe somebody on this list has more information...<br>
Bob Wilson, emeritus prof mathematics UW-Madison<br>
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