Slashdot Mirror
McDonalds Japan Distributes Infected MP3 Players
Tamas Feher from Hungary writes, "Finnish antivirus vendor F-Secure reports that Mcdonalds in Japan distributed 10,000 infected MP3 players as customer prizes in a promotion with Coca-Cola. The USB sticks contained 10 free songs plus the QQPass Trojan, which is intended to steal login data. F-Secure reports that they have heard, but cannot confirm, that simply plugging the USB device into a Windows PC is sufficient to get infected. Investigation is still going on, but the mishap apparently happened in Hong Kong. Patrons nationwide are urged to quickly return their M-logoed sticks for replacement or call a 24hr hotline, if unsure." Here is the Mcdonalds Japan announcement (in Japanese, but Babelfish at Altavista handles it well).
I would rather have a virus with my mp3's any one day over a biological virus with my food. As long as they don't migrate into biological virus distribution, I am fine with that. Unless of course you call contributing to the American obesity disease due to high fast food fat consumption a virus, then all deals are off. Thank God McDonald's is not in my list of places I frequent.
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
Whether Hong Kong is part of China or not doesn't really have a bearing. Bottom line is, McDonald's in Japan bought some USB keys from a company in Hong Kong, and those keys were infected with a trojan horse. That's the bottom line.
As for McDonald's Japan getting the blame, it's similar to the way Dell was blamed for the exploding batteries -- Although the batteries themselves was made by Sony, it was Dell laptops which were catching fire. It's their product, they need to stand behind it if it's defective.