[Cryptography] Inspired by the question re disk encryption...

[Robert L Wilson]

I've been using old "real" rotating disks as well as SSDs now for 
decades, both at home and in projects I used to be responsible for in 
industry. A slightly related issue: For a couple of decades now, drives 
have relied on firmware stored in rewriteable PROMs on the disk 
controller. But rewriteable carries the risk that the wrong guy rewrites 
it... I had some Seagate drives ruined when a virus rewrote that 
microcode. I know very little about SSD technology but have no reason to 
doubt it has the same vulnerability.

So I just want to ask what if any risks there are other than just 
semi-random failure of SSDs. There is always the possibility that a 
nasty cosmic ray breaks into your house and changes some crucial bits. 
And chips, including the RAM chips making up an SSD, can be defective or 
just get old, like chips anywhere. But are there additional ways SSDs 
can die? I may need something else to worry about these days...

Bob Wilson
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