Malware and Reinstall With An Image

[tom982]

TY for your comments. I have found through research that a virus can infect the boot sector (there is a test for that, which I passed) or the BIOS. There is no way to remove the BIOS infection, without an update or a flash. I don't think that I have that problem, however, as it is rare.

MBR infections are becoming more and more often, I'm afraid, but only really came to light back in the days where TDSS ruled the forums. The tools are becoming very efficient at removing MBR infections though so an MBR infection isn't a thing of much concern to analysts any more. As far as I know, only Award BIOSs can be infected and I only know of one rootkit (in the wild, not proof of concept) capable of doing this, Mebromi:

Mebromi: the first BIOS rootkit in the wild | Webroot Threat Blog - Internet Security Threat Updates from Around the World

Fortunately, it doesn't have a privilege escalation exploit in it so the whole process relies on the victim escalating the dropper, which is unlikely

 

[richc46]

Thanks, again, Tom. Although your post is a bit more specific, it does agree with my research.