Can a website zap a hard drive ? 1

[busuabo]

A friend of mine just had his hard drive zapped by a website ( as he claimed to be so ). I find his story so unbelievable and could not understand how such a thing could have happened . Here is the story :

_My friend is a download freak and loves testing out new softwares. He visits warez sites daily, search for interesting programs. Two days ago he visited a warez site from China that offers cracks and URLs to the corresponding websites to D/L trial softwares. He said as soon as he clicked on the URL of this particular website, he heard clicking noises coming from his 15 months old 13.6 G Western Digital HD . A day later, his HD conk out completely . Apparently the MBR of the HD was erased clean because my friend used FDISK to check the HD and FDISK could not see any hard drives in his system !! I told him it might well be a coincidence that his HD died when he clicked on that URL . He did not agree and even told me this type of reaction from a software company occured before. He mentioned a website that pop-up a warning before freezing his system. He got to restart his PC to resume surfing the net again. My friend deduced that if freezing his PC by remote action was possible then zapping his HD was clearly the next logical and step . If I did not believe him, he told me to try replicating his experience but I refused for fear that my brand new 120 Gigs Maxtor might
suffer the cruel fate for lousy untried warez stuff!

But I could not make any head or tail out of his story, especially when my friend's system had been equipped with the latest AVG Antivirus and ZoneAlarm Pro firewall !
Please comment and explain how this can happen ?

 

[Eskimo69]

I've asked many people including true techs, People with bachelors degrees in this stuff and you know I have yet to have a specific answer. Some say Yes a virus could possibly fry your hard drive others say no it's impossible even if it deleted his mbr isn't that fixable (nvm off the subject). My good friend had a tech tell him that when he had his virus infection it actually made his hard drive spin faster too fast infact and put a crack in it. Who knows. As much as I have gotten and all the questions I have ever asked I would have to say it is possible but kind of unlikely......

 

[John Lewis]

Your friend should be aware that even the best anti-virus software cannot protect you from your own stupidity. If you download and install unknown software from web sites that might not be legitimate, sooner or later you're gonna get fried. It's just a matter of time.

Now, I don't see how that could be the problem here. Can't think of anything that software could do to a hard drive that would fry a hard drive to the point that fdisk doesn't see it. Could corrupt the MBR and/or the data, but not what you are describing.

 

[edfair]

Anything that can corrupt the MBR can corrupt the partition table and if the partition table is moved like some virii like to do when they install themselves then the table isn't visible unless the virus is active so a fdisk from an uninfected boot disk wouldn't be able to see it.

Can't remember the particular series that is notorious for this problem. Too late after a long day chasing problems.

And understand that virus writers are ahead of the anti-virus writers.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[bcastner]

Yes, a web page could damage your hard disk drive.

1. Did your friend apply this patch?

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-023.asp

2. Several months ago there were several credible reports that a virus being distributed (Kazaa was frequently mentioned as a source) would do a small Hard Disk Bios flash effectively killing the drive.

Now to the extent that #1 + #2 are both arguably possible, it would not suprise me that someone combined them into a malevolent web page.

 

[busuabo]

Thanks for your comments. So far the view is : it's a virus problem. I am not so sure as this guy is in his game, knows what he is into and gets himself well protected with anti-virus, anti-trojans etc....He told me he scheduled anti-virus & trojans checks after closing the browser . I kind of wonder if other destruction mechanisms were involved here ?

 

[norty303]

Cracks sites (and even more so for Warez sites) are full of danger for even a casual user as the people that run them are obviously capable coders and in the know as far as latest virus's are concerned. On one click into

http://www.cracks.ru

I picked up 87 new items (as detected by Ad-Aware 6).

I tend to not use a firewall or antivirus as the system performance suffers so badly but do have regular sweeps scheduled. so far I'm yet to be caught out but I do take precautions

 

[relaksuah]

[tt]Hi busuabo,

Quoting Ed Fair, "virus writers are ahead of the anti-virus writers", that may well have happened to your friend.

How do we get updates from the anti-virus companies? After they get alerted to a new virus, they try their method of killing it, then they upload on their site the new virus definitions for the end user to download and protect against that virus.

In other words, people will get infected with viruses that their anti-virus scanners doesnt know about.

Also, did your friend download the latest virus definitions from the anti-virus company? If he did, then the virus may be a new one. If he didn't, say he got the anti-virus from a warez site too anyway, then he was not protected from the latest viruses at that particular point of time.

Anybody else can add? ;-) this is a smooth topic to talk about anyway...

 

[Grenage]

It's unlikely and I've never seen it before, but I imagine with a virus it would be possible.

My personal opinion though if he's one of those people who constantly download rubbish and rip off software he more than deserved it.

 

[rockerfellerz]

Yes I imagine it's possible, but simple mechanical failure of the drive would also explain it. I think it unlikely that as soon as he clicked the URL that his drive was trashed.
Fdisk doesn't need an MBR to see a hard drive, but if it's not detected by the bios then fdisk won't see it either. When I've seen this before, the drives had failed, but not due to a virus. Those crack/warez sites are notorious for browser hijacks, and virus/trojan infections, but you usually have to download something first(get what you deserve I guess...)
That being said, you could post the URL, and maybe some brave soul will test it out!

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ

 

[busuabo]

bcastner theory is most intriguing : killing the HD with a remote bios flash ! I do not support my friend's D/L warez stuffs and interested in a scientific explanation for the incident only. Please withhold your ethical comments in our discussion for science's sake. Thanks...

 

[RustyDWO]

Dear all,

I have a similar (=) problem.
Access to HDD no available and fdisk does not see the partition and after reproduction on a second HDD the full disk.
See thread 602-702436 (don't know hoe to make a link here)