Arch Linux

archuser38013

Member

Registered: 2024-01-27

Posts: 96

Is it safe to use my mother's windows machine to flash device?

Device is 4g dongle. Want to downgrade the firmware to remove RNDIS which was added in latest to return to GSM functionality which older versions used.

I tried flashing the, windows only, firmware with the flashing program in a hirensbootcd vm on my own linux machine but it comes up with errors while trying to flash.

To remove the extra layer of complexity with the vm I am thinking to try using my mum's machine however she is very lazy about security. Is it risky?

I don't want to compromise my machine just to flash this device.

The device is a 4g dongle which does have some storage on it I think, not sure, not had a chance to examine as it is not working as I want it yet. I don't think it has any mass storage out the box, just the option to add a flash storage mini sd card.

There is some limited storage on the base device though as it stores some files to load drivers automatically in lieu of a driver disk. This is the part I want to flash though. So would any malware be able to get on their likely or not?

Last edited by archuser38013 (2024-05-10 08:35:52)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,115

Re: Is it safe to use my mother's windows machine to flash device?

It sounds like you're generally a bit too paranoid for your own good. It's most likely going to be as safe as flashing random firmware going to get. If you want to be absolutely sure here you'd have to do this on a completely fresh and isolated system.