How can a virus damage my hardware !?
How can a virus damage my hardware !?
It is uncommon for viruses to change component voltages, though some might temporarily boost CPU speeds or disable safety features. Most infections simply consume system resources, using memory or storage space by running background tasks. Certain viruses can lock your files, forcing attackers to try recovering the encrypted data, but they often delete the files and take your money.
A virus is essentially a piece of code that can be designed to interact with hardware. A friend created a malware a decade ago that would turn off the CPU fan, using Intel's built-in protections like throttling or shutdown features. Older AMD processors didn't have these safeguards, so they eventually failed.
According to my understanding, they are limited to raising the load to 100%.
It varies based on the access level. However, consider this: there are options to boost component performance by adjusting voltage settings through the operating system, which means you don’t always need to modify the BIOS (though turning off fans is also feasible). If a virus performed the same action against your choice, it could do so too. Disabling safety features would be much harder for malware, but viruses could still harm or destroy CPUs or GPUs over time.
By focusing on the hard drive and surrounding parts, they might damage them over time, leading to premature failure—particularly in laptops where overheating is a major concern.