This is really scary - malware that can write itself on to the BIOS and firmware of different peripherals simultaneously on your computer - booting up before the operating system or anti-virus. Right now, Rakhasa is just a proof of concept at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.
It might not be all that simple to actually create a very contagious piece of malware though, considering the sheer number of devices on the market. This type of software has to be very low level and has to be able to talk to work independent of the operating system - not an easy task for any given device. It's much harder to make it work on multiple devices. Just ask any Android developer or even web developer - writing code to work on every device and every browser can be exasperating. Writing device drivers or firmware is not for script kiddies. Nothing against Apple, but it does lend itself to this sort of malware than Windows machines, by minimizing device fragmentation.
