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Computer Virus/Virii and the HP3000

There has never been a computer virus "in the wild" for an HP3000. This is due to several factors:

• The HP3000 installed base is such a relatively small target that it's not worth the effort for commercial virus writers
  • Nor are there that many very technically knowledgeable HP3000 programmers on the 'dark side')
• The HP3000 low level operating system/firmware enforces a separation of code and data; this makes it impossible for classic 'buffer overflow' attacks to write over executable code on the HP3000
  • The exception to this would potentially be Java Code running on the HP300 (which is relatively rare anyway) where the Java interpreter manages its own software stack
• Code executing on the HP3000 has several hardware/microcode enforced privilege levels, with very limited (and well defined and secured) means of elevating privilege level
• Individual users on an HP3000 usually have limited file system access anyway; if one were to introduce malware onto the system, that malware would be limited by the login user's system and file access

There have been reports of some computer worms on the HP3000 in the distant past (created as experiments in isolated environments) and all I've heard of took advantage of old operating system bugs which have long since been repaired.

-- ChrisBartram - 04 Feb 2007

Parents: Main > HP3000FAQ > Hp3000Security

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