Worst cast worm damage estimates: Research

Sun Jun 6 03:28:30 UTC 2004

SD> That's less than $400 per defective motherboard.
SD> Your paper estimates it would cost more than double
SD> to replace a scrambled BIOS.

> Edward B. Dreger
> Definitely sounds high, especially considering the
> cheap end with socketed a DIPP BIOS: Boot from
> "loaner" BIOS chip. Remove loaner BIOS. Insert chip
> containing scrambled BIOS. Flash.

Indeed. I found out that in most cases the loaner BIOS does not even
have to come from the same brand PC and in many cases it will allow to
boot DOS to flash the original BIOS back even if it was for another
chipset.

As far as re-installing Windows, it just takes a few minutes when you
have something like Symantec Ghost or Altiris client.

Michel.