First of all, let's clarify a matter: because you may ask "what's with the quotes in the title?" I must explain you one thing. This article is not about one of those popular MP3 players manufactured by the Cupertino-based company, it's actually about a crappy device probably made by some Chinese firm which attempted to lure more consumers by using Apple's logo and product name (some of you may consider that the "d" at the end of iPod looks like an "a" but, what the heck, it's obvious the manufacturers wanted to take advantage of Apple's success on the market).

Although it's obviously a trademark infringing case, we're not here to talk about legal disputes but about some security issues recently discovered.

As you know, more and more computer infections attempt to propagate themselves by copying their files on USB removable drives and, once connected to a clean computer, they install and compromise the system. But, what's worse is that some devices which provide USB connectivity are shipped with pre-installed viruses, probably due to the ignorance of the manufacturer or to some errors in the scanning process made before shipping. It happened in the past with digital photo frames and it also happened one week ago with HP's flash drives.

However, it seems like MP3 players are also affected by this issue. And this is the time when we start talking about that fake Apple iPod (which by the way, says it provides 1 GB of storage space) because, according to Michael of Viruslist.com, it has been shipped with a pre-installed virus. Just like usual, the infection was detected once the USB connection was established, the installed Kasperksy Internet Security identifying and blocking the threat.

So, in a era when more and more threats affect the USB-based devices and when such products are shipped with all kinds of accessories, including headsets, connectivity cables, viruses and Trojan horses, antiviruses are simply a must-have...