Posted on 05/21/2010 8:14:34 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Malware-infected USB key the culprit.
Delegates to AusCERT, Australia's premier information security event held this week on the Gold Coast, have taken home a little of the stuff they spent the week agonising over - a virus.
In an email this afternoon, IBM advised visitors to its AusCERT booth that its complimentary USB key was infected with a virus. An IBM spokesman and conference organisers confirmed the email was genuine.
It is the second time in two years that clumsy exhibitors have infected their customers with viruses.
"At the AusCERT conference this week, you may have collected a complimentary USB key from the IBM booth," IBM Australia chief technologist Glenn Wightwick wrote in an email to delegates this afternoon.
"Unfortunately we have discovered that some of these USB keys contained malware and we suspect that all USB keys may be affected."
Wightwick said the malware, which dated to 2008, was detected by most anti-virus products.
"The malware is known by a number of names and is contained in the setup.exe and autorun.ini files.
"It is spread when the infected USB device is inserted into a Microsoft Windows workstation or server whereby the setup.exe and autorun.ini files run automatically.
"Please do not use the USB key, and we ask that you return it to IBM."
IBM said in a statement that a "small number of IBM-branded USB sticks distributed to delegates at the recent AusCERT2010 conference were found to contain malware".
"IBM has immediately contacted delegates with remedial advice, and regrets any inconvenience that may have been caused," an IBM spokesman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at itnews.com.au ...
Portable drive worm? Very nasty.
Probably intentional by some employee.
Funny my wife brought one home from a show yesterday. I knew enough to check it for junk first.
Quite a few years ago I was doing some computer work for a very large financial institution.
The testing lab of the financial company had created a new machine image which contained all the software needed to run company workstations. The testing lab signed off on the image and sent it to their contractor so it could be pushed out to company workstations.
The contractor, for whatever reason, added a piece of software that hadn’t been tested, then pushed the image out to a third of the machines the company had. At least 1,000 computers. Every single computer blew up.
The contractor had added an anti-virus program to an image that already had a virus package. McAfee and Norton don’t play well together on the same computer.
The contractor: IBM
Probably outsourced the sticks to China. This crap happens all the time with turd world electronics.
/johnny
http://research.pandasecurity.com/panda-usb-and-autorun-vaccine/
These are what we call “experts”
Somebody should point out, I guess, that Macs are essentially immune from this and virtually all other malware.
You can disable it in Windows XP, as well -- but you have to use the TweakUI Power Toy from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
It was a stupid feature, anyway. I'm glad they finally saw the light for Windows 7 -- but wonder why they haven't fixed Windows XP.
Hey! Yet another reason to run Linux!
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