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Posted on 03/13/2008 7:09:13 PM PDT by Flavius
From iPods to navigation systems, some of today's hottest gadgets are landing on store shelves with some unwanted extras from the factory -- pre-installed viruses that steal passwords, open doors for hackers and make computers spew spam.
ADVERTISEMENT Computer users have been warned for years about virus threats from downloading Internet porn and opening suspicious e-mail attachments. Now they run the risk of picking up a digital infection just by plugging a new gizmo into their PCs.
Recent cases reviewed by The Associated Press include some of the most widely used tech devices: Apple iPods, digital picture frames sold by Target and Best Buy stores and TomTom navigation gear.
In most cases, Chinese factories -- where many companies have turned to keep prices low -- are the source.
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
Made in China. Figures.
Ping
bump
All the best that Wall mart has to offer...
I’m not surprised....
Chinese gov’t not to blame for infected hard-drives?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929251/posts
This sounds like complete BS. Don 't these hardware devices use embedded OSes embedded in EPROMS or EEPROMS? I wouldn't think they could get a virus from a PC. This sounds more like deliberate sabotage performed much further upstream when the vendor gets the golden master to load into the devices during manufacture. There is huge money in the spam "industry" and large global gangs drive the technology. I suspect that somebody in engineering pinched the object code to be loaded into the devices and sent it to the spam gang where it was decompiled, the virus inserted and then recompiled. The engineer then substituted the modified object code from the spam gang for the original object code. My bet is that you'll find engineer(s) and their managers on the take in China. This is not a casual accident and money is changing hands. The big surprise is the US companies are not checking the code on the finished devices against their master or comparing simple checksums.
ping
“This sounds like complete BS. Don ‘t these hardware devices use embedded OSes embedded in EPROMS or EEPROMS?”
Yes, but I expect most of them when plugged into a PC just appear as USB mass-storage devices to the PC. Resident viruses on the PC would be watching for any such devices to be attached and copy themselves to it. That’s not to say the infections aren’t deliberate, however...
* BUMP*!
Protectionist!
(Just in case, it's sarcasm.)
The easiest means of dealing with this threat is to have a testbed PC, locked down, running a heavily secured Linux or BSD install. And, as for newly procured storage devices, seriously, just wipe them clean before use. In other words, treat every newly procured device as a potential threat, and clean it up yourself before attaching it to a clean PC.
-YYZ- offers the best explanation. Devices like iPods and flash memory sticks are usually pre-formatted for use with Windows or Mac systems. They will appear as mass storage devices when plugged in. So, what’s probably happening is that the testbed PCs at the point of manufacture are running Windows and are infested with malware. The malware is probably copying itself to the devices as they are tested using the PCs.
Come on capitalist boy, we hack you long time...
When will Americans wake up? Don’t buy Chinese products. Everyone I know avoids “Made in China”. Sure nowadays it’s difficult to find non-Chinese products but if you ask yourself if you really need it then usually the answer is “no”. I find alternatives or do without.
"...digital picture frames sold by Target and Best Buy stores..."
Reading not your strong suit, eh?
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