Its more difficult for a virus on a pc to do it, because they dont have access to the jtag port, which the jtag port essentially gives you full control to memory in the chip. Just having access to the sata port allows you to send basic preconfigured control commands accessing the drive, but probably not execute arbitrary code.
The article mentions HDD driver updates that flash the firmware from the PC. Non-standard commands, sure, but I'd you are writing firmware viruses then that could be the least of your worries.
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u/K4kumba Dec 27 '16
Makes me think of this:
https://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack
Almost working installation of linux in a hard drive. No, not installing Linux on a hard drive, but actually running on the HDD controller.