Malware: Fighting Malicious Code

Summary

As we've seen throughout this book, malware propagates using a variety of mechanisms, including the virus, worm, and mobile code vectors. Additionally, different malware specimens operate at various levels of our operating systems. Many Trojan horses and backdoors operate at the application level, whereas user-mode RootKits replace some components of the operating system. Kernel-mode RootKits go even deeper, changing the heart of the operating system, the kernel itself. Some attacks could go even deeper, manipulating the BIOS or CPU. Also, some attacks crossbreed various malware categories, implementing combo malware to increase their damage.

One type of deeper malware could attack the BIOS of the computer itself. The BIOS, typically ...