Your iPhone is taints, rotten gadets from Cnn

RoyceSraphim

Here is the story from CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/03/13/factory.installed.virus.ap/index.html

Forgive me if this is unworthy for your eyes but I thought that we could all appreciate how serious such a thing could. Any one of us could be struck down by this malignant threat the next time we get a new MP3 player or flashdrive. All you wanted to do was take a digital copy of your resume to be on your person and BAM! More memory leaks than a senile vice president .

:evil:The infections ran the usual gamut of security killers, and password stealers. Some were never even seen before the device was plugged in.

:evil:The two extreme sources of these infections are lazy employees attaching the devices to an infected machine and not noticing what is carried on to the device, and at the other end, we have malicious hackers sneaking in malware when the device is first programmed and assembled.

:evil:Tracing the source of the infection is quite difficult due to companies trying to keep trade secrets and the fact that they scatter like roaches at the first sign of an investigation.

:!:Keeping your antivirus up to date is a strong defense against known threats that some devices may carry. If you are affected by a corrupted device, please alert the vendor you purchased it from so that it may be removed from their stock and others might be saved. You also could get a refund or some other form of compensation.

Sueve

This is why a trade deficit with China is a bad thing.

They sell us lead paint, dangerous toys, electronics with viruses (viri?) and all we can do is say please don't do it again.

Arrath

Hah, not too unexpected on my part. When a flash drive installed Google Toolbar without asking me it made me wonder what else might be on the device. Now I have autorun disabled and run a virus scan when I plug them into my computer, if its new I usually reformat it as well.

The Dude With Herpes

RoyceSraphim wrote: »

Here is the story from CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/03/13/factory.installed.virus.ap/index.html

Forgive me if this is unworthy for your eyes but I thought that we could all appreciate how serious such a thing could. Any one of us could be struck down by this malignant threat the next time we get a new MP3 player or flashdrive. All you wanted to do was take a digital copy of your resume to be on your person and BAM! More memory leaks than a senile vice president .

:evil:The infections ran the usual gamut of security killers, and password stealers. Some were never even seen before the device was plugged in.

:evil:The two extreme sources of these infections are lazy employees attaching the devices to an infected machine and not noticing what is carried on to the device, and at the other end, we have malicious hackers sneaking in malware when the device is first programmed and assembled.

:evil:Tracing the source of the infection is quite difficult due to companies trying to keep trade secrets and the fact that they scatter like roaches at the first sign of an investigation.

:!:Keeping your antivirus up to date is a strong defense against known threats that some devices may carry. If you are affected by a corrupted device, please alert the vendor you purchased it from so that it may be removed from their stock and others might be saved. You also could get a refund or some other form of compensation.

I think your sig might be missing a few words.

In other news, I hate stories like this because it makes people that know nothing about tech freak out and I'll have to listen to my mom, 6 months from now, lecture me on some inane shit she read on CNN and assumed that every thing you can possibly plug into anything (let your imagination fly) will cause a virus.

And i'll just roll my eyes and nod my head.

Frem

The example they used was the iPod virus scare almost two years ago. Right. My favorite incident would probably have to be the Sony BMG rootkit. It's even better because it didn't come from China. ;-)

Even with all these scares, nobody seems to want to dump Windows and switch to OS X or Linux. It's somewhat disheartening.

LuckyStrikeYo

Sure, lets switch to Linux and make sure that not only don't we have viruses but now we don't have working gadgets too

Frem

Yeah, it's only powering like a quarter of them.

Oh, I know! We could all switch to OS X. There certainly aren't any popular MP3 players that work with that.

LuckyStrikeYo

If we all switched to OS X then guess where the viruses would start showing up? Really, the solution is better QC at the factory.

Shadowfire

The minute we switch over to Linux/OSX/BeOS/Plan 9/ OS/2, that becomes the new target of choice for virus makers. Windows is the target now because the vast majority of PCs run it.

Beat'd so hard...

Frem

No, not really. OS X is based on BSD, which is, as designed, inherently more secure than Windows. Viruses would show up, but they'd be more of a pain to write, would spread slower, and a lot of them would be introduced into the user's computer due to their own stupidity. (Well, I guess the last one isn't much of an improvement.)

My idealistic solution is for Microsoft to write a more secure operating system.

But yes, in reality, the solution is better QC.

edit: Also, as much as I love BeOS and OS/2, if virus makers targeted them, they'd be just as bad as Windows 98, if not worse.

MKR

Frem wrote: »

No, not really. OS X is based on BSD, which is, as designed, inherently more secure than Windows. Viruses would show up, but they'd be more of a pain to write, would spread slower, and a lot of them would be introduced into the user's computer due to their own stupidity. (Well, I guess the last one isn't much of an improvement.)

My idealistic solution is for Microsoft to write a more secure operating system.

But yes, in reality, the solution is better QC.

edit: Also, as much as I love BeOS and OS/2, if virus makers targeted them, they'd be just as bad as Windows 98, if not worse.

People will go to great lengths if they think they're getting free stuff. I don't think it's unreasonable to think someone will follow the e-mail's instructions to enable execution on the malware. A virus doesn't need root access, just access to ~/, where all the goodies are. :P

Daedalus

Sueve wrote: »

This is why a trade deficit with China is a bad thing.

They sell us lead paint, dangerous toys, electronics with viruses (viri?) and all we can do is say please don't do it again.

Yes, yes, it's a conspiracy by the Chinese government and "they" are out to get you.

Do you own a video game console? Like, any video game console? Guess where it was manufactured.

The problems happen when a company starts demanding that their toys, etc. get manufactured as cheaply as possible, and then the factories in China that they contracted the work out to start cutting corners to keep the price to what was demanded. If the company contracting out to China pays a little extra for some fucking quality control (say, Nintendo, for instance), hey, the resulting product magically doesn't fuck up. Funny how that works.

Anti-Sean

Sueve wrote: »

viruses (viri?)

Ah, one of my 'favorite' pet peeves; 'viruses' is the correct plural form of the word. Thank you for actually questioning it instead of blithely charging forward with the incorrect version!

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html

I'm going to go yell at some kids to get the hell off of my lawn until I stop twitching. Carry on!

Echo

LuckyStrikeYo wrote: »

If we all switched to OS X then guess where the viruses would start showing up? Really, the solution is better QC at the factory.

Let's not mention that both Linux and OS X are more secure out of the box than Windows, hence Windows being a ton more suspectible to viruses.

How many OS X viruses are there again? One? That requires you to enter your password?