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I was curious as to if a boot CD could be infected with a virus?
This is my situation. Lets say that I have a computer that I believe could be infected with at least 2 different viruses/malware/etc. Now, I wish to create a custom boot cd or something along those lines. I create an ISO and burn it to CD. Would that ISO be infected?
i'm not a virus expert so don't take what i say as gospel. I've studied some viruss', and keep up on the latest news /dislaimer
It could be possible if the virus was specifically targetted or contained in any of the files burnt to the cd, IE, .exes, word files, .zip, etc. It simply would not be a viable distribution method of spreading via CD's(it was during the existence of the sneaker net), so very few viruses possess the capability of subverting a process of CD burning(btw, most OS's will prevent access of any sort to the cd/dvd drive during burning, so it would be pretty damn hard to infect a boot CD unless it was in one of the files being burned)
but to be sure:
boot to safe mode
ensure that the hash of the iso you're burning(i'm assuming its an iso) matches the hash from the web. Then burn the CD. Then scan the cd on a different computer.
I hope this is all correct, and I hope it helps you!
Quote:
Originally posted here by g3neration
I was curious as to if a boot CD could be infected with a virus?
This is my situation. Lets say that I have a computer that I believe could be infected with at least 2 different viruses/malware/etc. Now, I wish to create a custom boot cd or something along those lines. I create an ISO and burn it to CD. Would that ISO be infected?
In general, you would be safe from infecting a CD if it is only a write-once read-many CD (this is, of course, so long as the files you are writing are not themselves infected).
However, it would be very possible (and I have several examples from my own research) for a computer virus to infect a CD-RW disk once it has been formatted and made ready to use in your system as a secondary removable drive (like a floppy drive or ZIP Drive). This is because ytou are formatting the disk to allow "Drag and Drop" capabilities to the CD so that you can use it for storage without having to re-write every time you decide to add more files. If you format your Boot CD as simply a Bootable CD by using a CD-R rather than a CD-RW, in 99.99% of the cases you should be ok... again so long as none of the files you are burning to the CD-R are already infected.
as noted above by locked, this is a very good suggestion to make use of. I prefer to always burn a CD either while in limited account status and after doing a Safe Mode scan for infected or damaged files. After buring the CD I always recheck in safe mode to rescan the CD for any possible infections or damages that may have occurred.Quote:
Originally posted here by Locked
[B
but to be sure:
boot to safe mode
ensure that the hash of the iso you're burning(i'm assuming its an iso) matches the hash from the web. Then burn the CD. Then scan the cd on a different computer.
I hope this is all correct, and I hope it helps you! [/B]
What kind of boot CD?
If you OS is windows and you creating iso for linux. then virus will not affect you.
Online scanners can be used as well. You can also zip iso and then upload for scanning then it will take les time. (most of them can scan iso)
Hi,
The simple answer is "yes" boot sector and file infector viruses transmit themselves via media. These are the "old" viruses from the days before the internet became so widespread and "worms" became prevalent.Quote:
I was curious as to if a boot CD could be infected with a virus?
A CD/DVD is no diferent from a floppy or magnetic tape. The files that are written to it can be infected whilst on the infected machine.
If you have two drives, you could boot with a clean CD, download stuff and burn it without infection, because you would not have opened up the infected operating system.
There have been several cases of PC manufacturers and magazines distributing infected CDs so it is quite feasible. Basically you should assemble and burn stuff on a non-infected machine.
:)
If you created the BootCD on a "clean" computer it'll be safe.. However, if you used the infected computer to create a BootCD then there's a change your BootCD might be infected in the process.
In short, a computer that's infected should not be trusted.