Digital photo frames - spyware

[Mitchell Andrus]

On NPR this morning, Richard Clark said that some Chinese made digital photo frames were found to have been manufactured with viruses that searches your computer for sensitive info and then emails whatever it finds back home.

If they can do this with a $100.00 frame from K-Mart, imagine what they could do with just about everything else we use on a daily basis.

I'm wondering what week all of our digital cameras are set to erase all of our hard drives. Trojan Horses come gift-wrapped these days.

A little Googleing:


January 23, 2008 (Computerworld) (http://www.computerworld.com/) -- Best Buy Co. (http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=search&searchTerms=Best+Buy+Co.+Inc.) has confirmed that, during the holidays, it sold digital picture frames that harbored malicious code able to spread to any connected Windows PC. It is not recalling the frames, however. What Best Buy called "a limited number" of the 10.4-in. digital frames sold under its in-house Insignia brand were "contaminated with a computer virus during the manufacturing process," according to a notice posted on the Insignia site (http://www.insignia-products.com/news.aspx?showarticle=13) last weekend. The frame -- which carried the part number NS-DPF10A -- has been discontinued, and all remaining inventory pulled, Best Buy added.

[Randal Stevenson]

On NPR this morning, Richard Clark said that some Chinese made digital photo frames were found to have been manufactured with viruses that searches your computer for sensitive info and then emails whatever it finds back home.

If they can do this with a $100.00 frame from K-Mart, imagine what they could do with just about everything else we use on a daily basis.

I'm wondering what week all of our digital cameras are set to erase all of our hard drives. Trojan Horses come gift-wrapped these days.

A little Googleing:


January 23, 2008 (Computerworld) (http://www.computerworld.com/) -- Best Buy Co. (http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=search&searchTerms=Best+Buy+Co.+Inc.) has confirmed that, during the holidays, it sold digital picture frames that harbored malicious code able to spread to any connected Windows PC. It is not recalling the frames, however. What Best Buy called "a limited number" of the 10.4-in. digital frames sold under its in-house Insignia brand were "contaminated with a computer virus during the manufacturing process," according to a notice posted on the Insignia site (http://www.insignia-products.com/news.aspx?showarticle=13) last weekend. The frame -- which carried the part number NS-DPF10A -- has been discontinued, and all remaining inventory pulled, Best Buy added.


The government did an inventory/check and found cisco "clones" that either had, or could have back doors into them. This would allow a virtuall attack (which could stilll happen with botnets) and penetration into "secured" networks. (there are always holes as long as their are humans, read about Kevin Mitnek and social engineering).

That said, there are other options. Get rid of Windows, use an old pc as a virus/trojan checker and format every new device connected. Etc.......

Computer illiteracy isn't a crime, but they can and do happen because of it.