Yes, Matt. A virus can hide in the BIOS or UEFI, in the firmware on your keyboard, and firmware on your hard drive which does not get changed when formatting.

I assume this is pretty rare and I have only seen it myself on the BIOS of one computer in a 150,000 node network at the bank I worked for.

Billy

“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”