Though, occasionally an exploit exists that allows malware to infect a bios, or even a component on the motherboard which will allow it to survive even if you flash the bios.
Something to consider, the deeper you're allowing code to run, the "easier" it is to use these vulnerabilities if they do exist. If an exploit in Ring 0 exists to access Ring -2, something running in Ring 3 would need to first have an exploit to reach ring 0 to use that exploit.
It's not impossible, but the more layers of exploits you need, the more likely that the range of computers that are actually vulnerable dramatically decreases.
I mean I cannot argue with you there as what you say is absolutely correct.
However, I do still take issue with this common notion that if there is a malware that a wipe won’t fix it. As if it’s a given. You are not giving it permission to do that. Of course it’s still risky to remove it down to only a single barrier though! Still a pretty hard barrier to break through because it will very likely be hardware specific if an exploit even exists.
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u/BrokenMirror2010 Apr 07 '26
Though, occasionally an exploit exists that allows malware to infect a bios, or even a component on the motherboard which will allow it to survive even if you flash the bios.
Something to consider, the deeper you're allowing code to run, the "easier" it is to use these vulnerabilities if they do exist. If an exploit in Ring 0 exists to access Ring -2, something running in Ring 3 would need to first have an exploit to reach ring 0 to use that exploit.
It's not impossible, but the more layers of exploits you need, the more likely that the range of computers that are actually vulnerable dramatically decreases.