http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/24/persistent_bios_rootkits/ 

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
The Register
24th March 2009

Researchers have demonstrated how to create rootkits that survive 
hard-disk reformatting by injecting malware into the low-level system 
instructions of a target computer.

The researchers, from Core Security Technologies, used the techniques to 
inject rootkits into two computers, one running the OpenBSD operating 
system and the other Windows. Because the infection lives in the 
computer's BIOS, or basic input/output system, it persists even after 
the operating system is reinstalled or a computer's hard drive is 
replaced.

While researchers have focused on BIOS-based rootkits for at least three 
years, earlier techniques generally attacked specific types of BIOSes, 
such as those that used ACPI, or Advanced Configuration and Power 
Interface. The techniques demonstrated by the Core researchers work on 
virtually all types of systems, they said.

[...]


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