[Cialug] OT: Not that you needed another reason to hate maxtor

[Claus]

On 11/17/2007 7:12 AM, Todd Walton wrote:
> On Nov 16, 2007 10:21 PM, Nathan C. Smith <nathan.smith at ipmvs.com> wrote:
>> Update: Maxtor drives contain password-stealing Trojans
> 
> 1) Why would I hate Maxtor?  Not buy from them for a while, sure.  But
> it's not like Maxtor did it themselves.
> 
> 2) I'm having trouble understanding how a virus could be planted on a
> hard drive, pre-OS.  I know that the drives usually have a small
> hidden partition, so I assume it'd be there.  And what would it do,
> run on startup and copy binary information to free space on the main
> portion of the drive?  Does it assume Windows?  Can it detect free
> space and non free space?  Is hard drive electronics that smart?
> 
> -todd

Hard drives are pre-formated.  The article even states that Seagate is 
giving out a 60-day trial of kaspersky labs antivirus.  So a common 
virus was placed on the hard drive.  Moral of the story: format your 
hard drives.
   Claus