I have a standard Dell or Asus-motherboard based computer. it is a hard-disk or

Question

I have a standard Dell or Asus-motherboard based computer. it is a hard-disk or RAM. it was hacked remotely. I suspect that they were sophisticated.

I am happy to reformat the disk and/or throw it away altogether.

alas, because the computer was hacked, I wonder where else attackers could have hidden rootkits that will run even after I got myself a new disk---motherboard BIOS, video BIOS, perhaps even a variety of other devices in my system. I don't even know whether an Intel CPU has some internal storage that could have been corrupted. I am worried about a lower layer attack that starts up before it can ever be detected.

advice appreciated.

Explanation / Answer

As the other answer says, a complete system re-installation gets rid of common malware that's located in boot sectors or on-disk file systems.

It is possible to install malware in device firmware, so that it will reinfect the OS even after re-installation. You would need to restore the original firmware or remove/replace the device (and re-install the OS) to get rid of the malware. There are very rare reported cases of malware placed in device ROMs from the factory. Those cannot be rewritten and need to be removed/replaced obviously.

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