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When actually running programs, the load on the CPU can cause the core temperature to rise. While newer technologies have some effect (dynamic frequency & voltage scaling), this is still mostly because certain instructions use different electrical pathways in the microprocessor (as opposed to when the processor is simply in an idle or low power state). There have been various power viruses written in the past, which take advantage of this fact to repeatedly execute specific machine code which draws the most power, and thus produces the most heat (see the question Can a virus melt the CPU? for details).

While you could also extend this idea to other hardware in the system (which I'll cover below), another interesting one is storage devices. You could also write a virus to constantly read-write files to a drive, which will wear it out a lot faster (both mechanical hard drives and solid state drives). You will increase the likelihood of mechanical failure in a HDD, and decrease the drive longevity of a SSD. If the user is unaware of these constant read-write cycles, you can most likely damage their disks within a week or so if you implemented this properly.

Also, some Apple laptops have a microcontroller embedded in the battery. Nothing special, but in the past they released a patch that upgrades the firmware - and in turn, now the batteries themselves are susceptible to firmware hacks.

Now, back to the heat damage. Some new motherboards include the option to modify BIOS settings under Windows. You could theoretically write a virus that would increase the voltages in the system to artificially high limits, potentially damaging the components (RAM, CPU, north/southbridges). Raising the voltage and/or overclocking the PCIe bus could also damage some of those components.

One component in particular on a PCIe/AGP bus I would like to address is the video card. This is because most manufacturers provide overclocking tools to raise it's core speed and voltage. Taking that one step even further, you could also write a virus to use these tools to raise both of these things to dangerous levels, so you could either burn it up, overvolt it until it degrades, or both!

Do note that most computer hardware has overheating protection, and will reach "thermal shutdown" before any damage occurs. As for overvoltage protection, it's possible but far less common.

The point: It's possible to write viruses that take advantage of any computer system. If the target system has no access to external (or even its own) hardware, however, there's not too much damage you can do. The best analogy here would be like trying to hack someone who pulled their Ethernet cable out of the wall - you literally have no way access to that system.

That being said, most devices in our modern computer systems do have access to modify physical hardware parameters - namely, voltage and core speed. Since these things can be modified, it is possible for viruses to take advantage and possibly disrupt or destroy their operation altogether.

When actually running programs, the load on the CPU can cause the core temperature to rise. While newer technologies have some effect (dynamic frequency & voltage scaling), this is still mostly because certain instructions use different electrical pathways in the microprocessor (as opposed to when the processor is simply in an idle or low power state). There have been various power viruses written in the past, which take advantage of this fact to repeatedly execute specific machine code which draws the most power, and thus produces the most heat (see the question Can a virus melt the CPU? for details).

While you could also extend this idea to other hardware in the system (which I'll cover below), another interesting one is storage devices. You could also write a virus to constantly read-write files to a drive, which will wear it out a lot faster (both mechanical hard drives and solid state drives). You will increase the likelihood of mechanical failure in a HDD, and decrease the drive longevity of a SSD. If the user is unaware of these constant read-write cycles, you can most likely damage their disks within a week or so if you implemented this properly.

Also, some Apple laptops have a microcontroller embedded in the battery. Nothing special, but in the past they released a patch that upgrades the firmware - and in turn, now the batteries themselves are susceptible to firmware hacks.

Now, back to the heat damage. Some new motherboards include the option to modify BIOS settings under Windows. You could theoretically write a virus that would increase the voltages in the system to artificially high limits, potentially damaging the components (RAM, CPU, north/southbridges). Raising the voltage and/or overclocking the PCIe bus could also damage some of those components.

One component in particular on a PCIe/AGP bus I would like to address is the video card. This is because most manufacturers provide overclocking tools to raise it's core speed and voltage. Taking that one step even further, you could also write a virus to use these tools to raise both of these things to dangerous levels, so you could either burn it up, overvolt it until it degrades, or both!

Do note that most computer hardware has overheating protection, and will reach "thermal shutdown" before any damage occurs. As for overvoltage protection, it's possible but far less common.

The point: It's possible to write viruses that take advantage of any computer system. If the target system has no access to external (or even its own) hardware, however, there's not too much damage you can do. The best analogy here would be like trying to hack someone who pulled their Ethernet cable out of the wall - you literally have no way access to that system.

That being said, most devices in our modern computer systems do have access to modify physical hardware parameters - namely, voltage and core speed. Since these things can be modified, it is possible for viruses to take advantage and possibly disrupt or destroy their operation altogether.

When actually running programs, the load on the CPU can cause the core temperature to rise. While newer technologies have some effect (dynamic frequency & voltage scaling), this is still mostly because certain instructions use different electrical pathways in the microprocessor (as opposed to when the processor is simply in an idle or low power state). There have been various power viruses written in the past, which take advantage of this fact to repeatedly execute specific machine code which draws the most power, and thus produces the most heat.

While you could also extend this idea to other hardware in the system (which I'll cover below), another interesting one is storage devices. You could also write a virus to constantly read-write files to a drive, which will wear it out a lot faster (both mechanical hard drives and solid state drives). You will increase the likelihood of mechanical failure in a HDD, and decrease the drive longevity of a SSD. If the user is unaware of these constant read-write cycles, you can most likely damage their disks within a week or so if you implemented this properly.

Also, some Apple laptops have a microcontroller embedded in the battery. Nothing special, but in the past they released a patch that upgrades the firmware - and in turn, now the batteries themselves are susceptible to firmware hacks.

Now, back to the heat damage. Some new motherboards include the option to modify BIOS settings under Windows. You could theoretically write a virus that would increase the voltages in the system to artificially high limits, potentially damaging the components (RAM, CPU, north/southbridges). Raising the voltage and/or overclocking the PCIe bus could also damage some of those components.

One component in particular on a PCIe/AGP bus I would like to address is the video card. This is because most manufacturers provide overclocking tools to raise it's core speed and voltage. Taking that one step even further, you could also write a virus to use these tools to raise both of these things to dangerous levels, so you could either burn it up, overvolt it until it degrades, or both!

Do note that most computer hardware has overheating protection, and will reach "thermal shutdown" before any damage occurs. As for overvoltage protection, it's possible but far less common.

The point: It's possible to write viruses that take advantage of any computer system. If the target system has no access to external (or even its own) hardware, however, there's not too much damage you can do. The best analogy here would be like trying to hack someone who pulled their Ethernet cable out of the wall - you literally have no way access to that system.

That being said, most devices in our modern computer systems do have access to modify physical hardware parameters - namely, voltage and core speed. Since these things can be modified, it is possible for viruses to take advantage and possibly disrupt or destroy their operation altogether.

When actually running programs, the load on the CPU can cause the core temperature to rise. While newer technologies have some effect (dynamic frequency & voltage scaling), this is still mostly because certain instructions use different electrical pathways in the microprocessor (as opposed to when the processor is simply in an idle or low power state). There have been various power viruses written in the past, which take advantage of this fact to repeatedly execute specific machine code which draws the most power, and thus produces the most heat (see the question Can a virus melt the CPU? for details).

While you could also extend this idea to other hardware in the system (which I'll cover below), another interesting one is storage devices. You could also write a virus to constantly read-write files to a drive, which will wear it out a lot faster (both mechanical hard drives and solid state drives). You will increase the likelihood of mechanical failure in a HDD, and decrease the drive longevity of a SSD. If the user is unaware of these constant read-write cycles, you can most likely damage their disks within a week or so if you implemented this properly.

Also, some Apple laptops have a microcontroller embedded in the battery. Nothing special, but in the past they released a patch that upgrades the firmware - and in turn, now the batteries themselves are susceptible to firmware hacks.

Now, back to the heat damage. Some new motherboards include the option to modify BIOS settings under Windows. You could theoretically write a virus that would increase the voltages in the system to artificially high limits, potentially damaging the components (RAM, CPU, north/southbridges). Raising the voltage and/or overclocking the PCIe bus could also damage some of those components.

One component in particular on a PCIe/AGP bus I would like to address is the video card. This is because most manufacturers provide overclocking tools to raise it's core speed and voltage. Taking that one step even further, you could also write a virus to use these tools to raise both of these things to dangerous levels, so you could either burn it up, overvolt it until it degrades, or both!

Do note that most computer hardware has overheating protection, and will reach "thermal shutdown" before any damage occurs. As for overvoltage protection, it's possible but far less common.

The point: It's possible to write viruses that take advantage of any computer system. If the target system has no access to external (or even its own) hardware, however, there's not too much damage you can do. The best analogy here would be like trying to hack someone who pulled their Ethernet cable out of the wall - you literally have no way access to that system.

That being said, most devices in our modern computer systems do have access to modify physical hardware parameters - namely, voltage and core speed. Since these things can be modified, it is possible for viruses to take advantage and possibly disrupt or destroy their operation altogether.

CPU loading causes the core temperature to rise. This is because certain instructions use different electrical pathways in the microprocessor (as opposed to when the processor is simply in an idle or low power state). There have been various power viruses written in the past, which take advantage of this fact to repeatedly execute specific machine code which draws the most power, and thus produces the most heat.

While you could also extend this idea to other hardware in the system (which I'll cover below), another interesting one is storage devices. You could also write a virus to constantly read-write files to a drive, which will wear it out a lot faster (both mechanical hard drives and solid state drives). You will increase the likelihood of mechanical failure in a HDD, and decrease the drive longevity of a SSD. If the user is unaware of these constant read-write cycles, you can most likely damage their disks within a week or so if you implemented this properly.

Also, some Apple laptops have a microcontroller embedded in the battery. Nothing special, but in the past they released a patch that upgrades the firmware - and in turn, now the batteries themselves are susceptible to firmware hacks.

Now, back to the heat damage. Some new motherboards include the option to modify BIOS settings under Windows. You could theoretically write a virus that would increase the voltages in the system to artificially high limits, potentially damaging the components (RAM, CPU, north/southbridges). Raising the voltage and/or overclocking the PCIe bus could also damage some of those components.

One component in particular on a PCIe/AGP bus I would like to address is the video card. This is because most manufacturers provide overclocking tools to raise it's core speed and voltage. Taking that one step even further, you could also write a virus to use these tools to raise both of these things to dangerous levels, so you could either burn it up, overvolt it until it degrades, or both!

Do note that most computer hardware has overheating protection, and will reach "thermal shutdown" before any damage occurs. As for overvoltage protection, it's possible but far less common.

The point: It's possible to write viruses that take advantage of any computer system. If the target system has no access to external (or even its own) hardware, however, there's not too much damage you can do. The best analogy here would be like trying to hack someone who pulled their Ethernet cable out of the wall - you literally have no way access to that system.

That being said, most devices in our modern computer systems do have access to modify physical hardware parameters - namely, voltage and core speed. Since these things can be modified, it is possible for viruses to take advantage and possibly disrupt or destroy their operation altogether.

When actually running programs, the load on the CPU can cause the core temperature to rise. While newer technologies have some effect (dynamic frequency & voltage scaling), this is still mostly because certain instructions use different electrical pathways in the microprocessor (as opposed to when the processor is simply in an idle or low power state). There have been various power viruses written in the past, which take advantage of this fact to repeatedly execute specific machine code which draws the most power, and thus produces the most heat.

While you could also extend this idea to other hardware in the system (which I'll cover below), another interesting one is storage devices. You could also write a virus to constantly read-write files to a drive, which will wear it out a lot faster (both mechanical hard drives and solid state drives). You will increase the likelihood of mechanical failure in a HDD, and decrease the drive longevity of a SSD. If the user is unaware of these constant read-write cycles, you can most likely damage their disks within a week or so if you implemented this properly.

Also, some Apple laptops have a microcontroller embedded in the battery. Nothing special, but in the past they released a patch that upgrades the firmware - and in turn, now the batteries themselves are susceptible to firmware hacks.

Now, back to the heat damage. Some new motherboards include the option to modify BIOS settings under Windows. You could theoretically write a virus that would increase the voltages in the system to artificially high limits, potentially damaging the components (RAM, CPU, north/southbridges). Raising the voltage and/or overclocking the PCIe bus could also damage some of those components.

One component in particular on a PCIe/AGP bus I would like to address is the video card. This is because most manufacturers provide overclocking tools to raise it's core speed and voltage. Taking that one step even further, you could also write a virus to use these tools to raise both of these things to dangerous levels, so you could either burn it up, overvolt it until it degrades, or both!

Do note that most computer hardware has overheating protection, and will reach "thermal shutdown" before any damage occurs. As for overvoltage protection, it's possible but far less common.

The point: It's possible to write viruses that take advantage of any computer system. If the target system has no access to external (or even its own) hardware, however, there's not too much damage you can do. The best analogy here would be like trying to hack someone who pulled their Ethernet cable out of the wall - you literally have no way access to that system.

That being said, most devices in our modern computer systems do have access to modify physical hardware parameters - namely, voltage and core speed. Since these things can be modified, it is possible for viruses to take advantage and possibly disrupt or destroy their operation altogether.