A tiny guide for those who want to destroy a computer without wasting money to repair it. be warned i'm not the tidiest guide maker.

Shoutout to BEPISMAN for reminding silly old me that some viruses (network ones for example) can harm your real PC, i'd research the virus you desire to test before running it.

And everyone else who's given some good criticism. (i mean all of you.)


Step one. install a Virtual Machine

you'll need software to do anything like this, thankfully we have VirtualBox!

Go to downloads and get the latest build for your platform and let it install... easy enough right?

NOTE: YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION WILL BE TURNED OFF FOR A FEW MOMENTS DURING THE INSTALLATION! SAVE YOUR WEB BASED WORK.

Now allow the drivers to be installed and you'll have your VM installed... but there's some more work to be done...

Step two. Setting up your first "profile"
Now that you've opened the program you are greeted by a blank menu...

We need to make our first machine! Press new to begin...i should say that you'll need an ISO file to use your OS...i don't encourage piracy but i have a old copy of XP for this sake.
Now in the window that's popped up name your machine and select what OS you shall use.

Press next and fill what is seen next (the amount of ram you will lend to the VM)
This is what decides how fast your VM will be... i recommend you use half your total ram so you can still use programs outside of the VM


Now the last window... Setting up your virtual hard drive.

Leave it as shown and press create. you'll see a window then asking what format you want to use... i advise you use VDI if you do not intend to switch VM programs.
now the next window asks if you want fixed size or a dynamically allocated one, for the sake of the VM's speed use fixed it takes longer to make but overall causes less lag.

Select a size within your real storage drive's space... 20 gigs is perfect for this!

Now wait until it's done making the drive. why not go make some coffee or something if you set it large enough?

Oh boy! we are almost done!

Final step. installation. this only applies to XP!!!
Press SATA port 1 and select choose a disk image, from there navigate to where you placed your iso file...

Now double click your VM in the list to start it!

After some loading messages it will ask you to select a drive for windows to be installed on, it will see your Virtual one so press enter on it.

Select format using the NTFS file system

Now why not get some food or something while you wait...? this will take quite a bit!

From here it should be quite noob friendly so i'll end it here.

thanks for having the time to read this clutter filled mess... it means a lot! <3

 

[supergamer368]

Pretty good tutorial, just a few things here:
1. You really don’t need to give so much ram to the vm unless it’s like a really recent os or something. XP can survive just fine with like 1gb or something.
2. After installing and starting up the os on the vm, i recommend installing Virtualbox Guest Additions if Oracle supports it. This allows the machine to run much smoother, and take up the whole screen.
3. You’ll also need to set up an internet connection inside the VM to download the viruses. Some newer os’s will do this automatically, but ones like windows xp need a special driver. Pretty good guide on that here: https://www.hecticgeek.com/2016/02/enable-internet-windows-xp-virtualbox/
4. I also don’t think you need a virtual hard drive that bug if you’re only going to destroy the computer. a 5gb virtual drive would probably work fine.
Other than that, great job!

 

[chrisrlink]

good idea for those unknown programs also a good way to run programs that generate false positives (Most newer AV's auto remove "potential threats" even if it's falsely flagged one good example is pkg_linker for PS3 HAN

 

[Deleted User]

Nice tutorial, though, there's probably something very important you should point out:

Just because you're running a virus in a VM doesn't mean it's automatically safe and contained.

Some viruses these days are written to detect whether or not they're running in a VM or not, and, thus, may not behave the way you expect them to, in order to prevent people from reverse-engineering or researching said piece of malware. Also, some viruses and malware spread over the network, so containing it within a VM won't protect you from spreading it to other computers on your network. Stuff like BonziBuddy should be safe to run on your computer, though.

Also, this should be fairly obvious, but don't set up any shared folders between your VM and your host OS. It's going to spread to folders on your actual hard drive, and you probably don't want that.

Long story short, be careful out there. Exercise at least some caution while going full Vinesauce on your VM. There's a Malware Wiki for anyone who wants to research a particular piece of malware.

 

[supergamer368]

Nice tutorial, though, there's probably something very important you should point out:

Just because you're running a virus in a VM doesn't mean it's automatically safe and contained.

Some viruses these days are written to detect whether or not they're running in a VM or not, and, thus, may not behave the way you expect them to, in order to prevent people from reverse-engineering or researching said piece of malware. Also, some viruses and malware spread over the network, so containing it within a VM won't protect you from spreading it to other computers on your network. Stuff like BonziBuddy should be safe to run on your computer, though.

Also, this should be fairly obvious, but don't set up any shared folders between your VM and your host OS. It's going to spread to folders on your actual hard drive, and you probably don't want that.

Long story short, be careful out there. Exercise at least some caution while going full Vinesauce on your VM. There's a Malware Wiki for anyone who wants to research a particular piece of malware.

people actually have gotten bonzi buddy virus free as most of it was adware, and since the bonzi servers shut down that doesn’t work. so bonzi really isnt a threat at all anymore.

 

[Deleted User]

people actually have gotten bonzi buddy virus free as most of it was adware, and since the bonzi servers shut down that doesn’t work. so bonzi really isnt a threat at all anymore.

I know, but do you really want BonziBuddy running on your Host OS? I'd probably go nuts after a while.

 

[supergamer368]

I know, but do you really want BonziBuddy running on your Host OS? I'd probably go nuts after a while.

absolutely man i’m ready

 

[AngryCinnabon]

Nice tutorial, though, there's probably something very important you should point out:

Just because you're running a virus in a VM doesn't mean it's automatically safe and contained.

Some viruses these days are written to detect whether or not they're running in a VM or not, and, thus, may not behave the way you expect them to, in order to prevent people from reverse-engineering or researching said piece of malware. Also, some viruses and malware spread over the network, so containing it within a VM won't protect you from spreading it to other computers on your network. Stuff like BonziBuddy should be safe to run on your computer, though.

Also, this should be fairly obvious, but don't set up any shared folders between your VM and your host OS. It's going to spread to folders on your actual hard drive, and you probably don't want that.

Long story short, be careful out there. Exercise at least some caution while going full Vinesauce on your VM. There's a Malware Wiki for anyone who wants to research a particular piece of malware.

Ah yes, should remembered that... glad someone remembered.

 

[shadoom]

I recommend sandboxxie as well to see if it dropped any files etc.

 

[IC_]

Nice tutorial, but how does reinstalling the OS on a real computer cost any money?

 

[supergamer368]

Nice tutorial, but how does reinstalling the OS on a real computer cost any money?

Perhaps if you don’t have any recovery media and there’s no legal way to obtain it online?

 

[AngryCinnabon]

Nice tutorial, but how does reinstalling the OS on a real computer cost any money?

Old windows couldn't reset without a disk, so if you bought a prebuilt one you'd need to buy it

 

[0x40]

This is a terrible idea. VirtualBox will enable networking by default, which means the malware can spread to vulnerable network devices. It's also not impossible for malware to escape the hypervisor and pwn your host OS.

 

[AngryCinnabon]

This is a terrible idea. VirtualBox will enable networking by default, which means the malware can spread to vulnerable network devices. It's also not impossible for malware to escape the hypervisor and pwn your host OS.

i've given clear warnings.

 

[Uiaad]

Old windows couldn't reset without a disk, so if you bought a prebuilt one you'd need to buy it

Not strictly true, before the current generation of operating systems a lot of OEMs and just generally awesome people like me used a hidden partition and an imaging software such as norton ghost which a user could restore if they were having major issues.

Nice tutorial, but how does reinstalling the OS on a real computer cost any money?

As for why use VM's over real machines , it's generally quicker and easier to set up a VM, Clone it set one as a master and should anything happen to it , such as willful destruction with a virus/malware, It's quickly deleted and cloned again and ready for the next virus. Time is money at the end of the day and it's a lot quicker setting up a vm cloning it than having to reinstall an OS should anything go wrong with it.

 

[AngryCinnabon]

Not strictly true, before the current generation of operating systems a lot of OEMs and just generally awesome people like me used a hidden partition and an imaging software such as norton ghost which a user could restore if they were having major issues.



As for why use VM's over real machines , it's generally quicker and easier to set up a VM, Clone it set one as a master and should anything happen to it , such as willful destruction with a virus/malware, It's quickly deleted and cloned again and ready for the next virus. Time is money at the end of the day and it's a lot quicker setting up a vm cloning it than having to reinstall an OS should anything go wrong with it.

true, but this guide is centered around newbies who may not do such.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I would make sure to disconnect/remove the VirtualBox network adapter before you actually try to run a virus. You don't want anything managing to escape the VM.
I think as long as you do that there shouldn't be much risk. Unless there is a secret exploit we don't know about that can be used to escape virtualized environments...
I believe Meltdown/Spectre might work through a VM but all that lets you do is read data so there's not much risk of an infection spreading with that.

 

[0x40]

Unless there is a secret exploit we don't know about that can be used to escape virtualized environments...

There are exploits that we DO know about that can do just that. CVE-2017-3558 and CVE-2018-2698.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

There are exploits that we DO know about that can do just that. CVE-2017-3558 and CVE-2018-2698.

Both appear to be patched though.

 

[YOUCANTSTOPME]

If the idea is to use that VM for a virus PC (why?) then you should disable all network connections on it, too.