How can virus damage hardware

A computer virus or malware is meant to spy on you and steal your valuable data or simply use your system resources. However, there will be instances when a computer virus can damage the hardware. I dug a little deeper and found not one or two but nine different ways a computer virus can take a toll on various hardware components.

Here they are! Its consequences include premature wear, additional heat release, increased need for extra cooling and maintenance. But most importantly, overclocking can lead to a CPU blockage, therefore a blockage or a restart of the PC. What causes your CPU to overclock? It can happen because of:. As you probably know, if your computer is running slower and freezes or crashes unexpectedly, it could be a sign of a virus infection. Viruses and malware could consume your system resources and, among other things, max out your processor.

A constantly overworked CPU will overheat, its thermal paste will dry out, and it will break much faster. Some viruses could intentionally melt your CPU.

We call them power viruses since they can run a particular code that will draw the most power from the processor, producing abnormal heat levels. In older CPUs that lacked overheating protection, this was a severe issue.

Power viruses would have exploited the fact that when a processor is in use, it resorts to specific electrical pathways in its microprocessor to act on particular instructions.

By forcing the processor to work on the same instructions repeatedly, a power virus successfully overworked and broke the CPU. These days, however, CPUs incorporate modern technologies. Thanks to dynamic frequency and voltage scaling, plus the built-in thermal protection, it is less likely for the processor to be affected by such factors. How cool is that? Because it allows devices to access data at lightning speed, it represents one of the most critical components that dictate system performances.

The hardware component that makes DRAM functional consists of millions of memory cells, all crammed inside a tiny chip. Each memory cell has an integrated circuit consisting of a transistor and a capacitor, with each capacitor storing a data bit.

This DRAM vulnerability seems to be specific to modern memory chips. The smaller and more compact they are made, the closer the memory cell rows will sit, and the higher the odds of tampering with them through the rowhammer method. So, the DRAM rowhammer hardware exploit is an attack on the memory cells. The Project Zero team researchers discovered that, with some DRAM devices, if you repeatedly access a row of memory, bit flips will occur in the rows adjacent to the accessed row.

Whether a password or file permission, unavailable due to security reasons, it would be stored on a DRAM memory cell. These attacks can damage hardware if the firmware is programmed to do something malicious e. Someone who creates a virus is most likely creating the virus for monetary means, to spy, or to take control over the computer.

Attempting to write a virus that damages hardware doesn't help accomplish any of these goals and also doesn't help spread the virus to other computers. It's plausible that someone could write malware designed to target a person or company to damage hardware.

However, for this type of attack, the person wouldn't create a virus that infects other computers. Also, modern hardware is more difficult to damage hardware beyond repair. Today, systems use firmware that can be re-flashed or reset without replacing any chip or other hardware. Also, modern systems have safety measures that help protect hardware from becoming damaged.

For example, if a system gets too hot, it can turn itself off to prevent damage. There are many stories floating around that a virus can cause a computer to explode or catch fire; they are not valid.

In , the botnet virus Gameover ZueS was discovered to use peer-to-peer downloading sites to distribute ransomware and commit banking fraud. While tens of thousands of computer viruses still roam the internet, they have diversified their methods and are now joined by a number of malware variants like worms, Trojans , and ransomware. Opening spam email or an email attachment. Viruses can be spread several ways, including via networks, discs, email attachments or external storage devices like USB sticks.

Since connections between devices were once far more limited than today, early computer viruses were commonly spread through infected floppy disks.

Today, links between internet-enabled devices are for common, providing ample opportunities for viruses to spread. According to the U. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, infected email attachments are the most common means of circulating computer viruses.

Your computer may be infected if you recognize any of these malware symptoms :. Antiviruses have made great progress in being able to identify and prevent the spread of computer viruses. Yet, life is a curious thing and full of surprises. For example, back in a massive Win CIH a. Chernobyl virus pandemic took over thousands of machines. That malware corrupted data stored both on a hard drive and on BIOS chips on motherboards. Some of the affected PCs would not start as their boot program was damaged.

To level the adverse effects of the attack, one had to replace BIOS chips and rewrite the data. Was that effectively a physical damage inflicted on a PC? In reality, no. After a series of manipulations motherboards could be cured and returned to the operating state.