Disinfecting a computer is already a daunting task. A new malware makes the task even more difficult, as security researchers have discovered that it burrows so deeply into your computer that you’ll probably have to throw out your motherboard to get rid of it.
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The Kaspersky security inspectors who discovered it named it MoonBounce. The malware, technically a bootkit, penetrates beyond the hard drive and embeds itself in the computer's Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) boot firmware.
"The attack is very sophisticated," Tomer Bar, Director of Security Research at SafeBreach, told Lifewire via email. "Once the victim is infected, it is very persistent because even formatting the hard drive does not help."
Bootkit malware is rare, but not entirely new. Kaspersky itself has discovered two in recent years. What makes MoonBounce unique, however, is that it infects the flash memory on the motherboard, making it impervious to antivirus software and all other common malware removal methods.
