Virus alerts

Infected Digital Photo Frame Available for Only $129!

The digital photo frames can get infected too

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

10th of January 2008, 14:13 GMT

Adjust text size:

Digital photo frames may be more dangerous than you've expected

It has an 8" high resolution (800x600) and comes with 128MB of built-in memory. It supports CF type (I and II), SD, XD, MS and MMC. It is able to insert multiple transition effects and background music during slide shows. It costs only $129.87 and if you buy it right now, you also get a FREE computer infection that is able to make your computer go crazy.

This is how some TV commercials should sound, as several digital photo frames come with pre-installed malware

causing some annoying Windows anomalies. According to David Goldsmith of SANS, "MSCONFIG would not run - it would briefly open and then terminate, the system would blue screen when starting in safe mode, going to various anti-virus websites would result in the web browser terminating and various popups for random name.exe with 'not valid image' messages".

Since it can be connected to a computer using the USB port, it's pretty easy to infect your data, as more and more malware files attempt to spread themselves through USB removable drives. Take the example of the computer worms affecting the Windows operating systems, which place an Autorun.inf on every clean removable drive connected to an infected computer.

The entire exploit is quite easy. All you need to do is to plug the digital photo frame into your computer's USB port and the pre-installed malware is automatically copied on the computer. Since it comes with in-built memory, the infection is already placed inside the device, so no Internet connectivity is required to compromise the system.

Antivirus software may help you in some cases, but keep in mind that you must apply the latest virus definitions just after they have been released. As you can see, web-based scanning engines are quite useless since they are disabled by the malware, so extra-care is recommended once a new digital photo frame arrives at your home.

TAGS:

digital photo frame | malware | security | infection

SEARCH THE NEWS ARCHIVE :

Today's News | Yesterday's News | News Archive

User opinions:

No user comments yet.

Be the first to express your opinion using the form below!

Share your opinion:

SUBMIT PROGRAM \| ADVERTISE \| GET HELP \| SEND US FEEDBACK \| RSS FEEDS \| ENTER NEWS SITE \| ENGLISH BOARD \| ROMANIAN FORUM
© 2001 - 2008 Softpedia. All rights reserved. Softpedia™ and the Softpedia™ logo are registered trademarks of SoftNews NET SRL.	Copyright Information \| Privacy Policy \| Terms of Use \| Update your software \| Archive

NEWS CATEGORIES: