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Olympus Digital Camera Ships With a Worm
An anonymous reader writes "Olympus Japan has issued a warning to customers who have bought its Stylus Tough 6010 digital compact camera that it comes with an unexpected extra — a virus on its internal memory card. The Autorun worm cannot infect the camera itself, but if it is plugged into a Windows computer's USB port, it can copy itself onto the PC, then subsequently infect any attached USB device. Olympus says it 'humbly apologizes' for the incident, which is believed to have affected some 1,700 units. The company said it will make every effort to improve its quality control procedures in future. Security company Sophos says that more companies need to wake up to the need for better quality control to ensure that they don't ship virus-infected gadgets. At the same time, consumers should learn to always ensure Autorun is disabled, and scan any device for malware before they use it on their computer."
Whew, glad my Canon doesn't mount itself as a external disk. Think of all the grief I've saved myself by having to launch something to get photos off of it.
[/sarcasm]
So, where did these cameras originate? China, Japan, Taiwan?
Third World factories seem to keep on making these mistakes.
You think they'd try making these in Japan, with full Japanese citizens making them for once?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I hate to ask the obvious question, but the article doesn't address it -- could this be intentional, or is it accidental?
I would imagine that some shady overboss would be willing to pay a relatively sizable amount of money (especially considering that the amount of money you'd have to pay someone in a Chinese factory to do this would not be very high) for the opportunity to infect potentially tens of thousands of computers.
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
"So I took it back to Best Buy "
I'd post AC too if were I admitting that. Eeew.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
What kind of compensation are the makers going to offer everyone who's system they hosed?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Seriously?
It's getting to the point where running a computer is turning into a full time job. I need to scan every single product I buy before using it? Isn't that why I bother to pay a premium to get name-brand products from legitimate outlets?
I'm annoyed that the ultimate time-saving device is becoming more and more of a chore. I'm expected to spend hours researching the ways in which to harden my browser against cookie tracking, to rate virus scanners using contradictory and confusing standards, to assess information that requires a degree in computer science everytime I want to get a PC game to work, to pull out my law degree everytime I use an online product or dive through an EULA, and now this?
I mean come on, where's it going to end? Should I do independant surge tests on the next microwave I buy before plugging it in? What about my printer, does it need a scan too? Should I take my newly purchased tires to an independant assessor? How about that new CD I bought?
I wonder what bright soul at Microsoft thought it a good idea to extend autorun to all types of removable media. It was tolerable if annoying for CDs and DVDs, but it became downright dangerous once USB sticks and similar rewritable media were included. I wonder why they haven't decided to push an update that disables or limits the damage that this misbegotten feature can do.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Unnecessary unless you use an ancient decade-plus-old Windows version. Vista and 7 stop this attack automatically by displaying the Autoplay dialog when a new device is inserted.
In fact, Windows 7 removes the ability entirely to manually execute Autorun from a flash drive.
Civil and criminal penalties should be imposed on manufacturers that ship hardware that's pre-loaded with malware. As of right now, there are no consequences, which means that this will continue to happen. The only remedy that will stop, or at least curb this behavior is serious civil or criminal charges.
Companies may blame this on outsourcing, but they have chosen to outsource. They may blame it on poor quality control, but quality control is their responsibility! There is no excuse for this, and the executives that make decisions that lead to this type of security hole must be held accountable. I wish I could say that I was surprised by this news, but I'm not. It's commonplace. And until hardware and software companies are held accountable, this will continue to happen.
Facts have a liberal bias.
For the customers you have the appropriate product is in trouble indeed grateful, bon appétit do so as follows: anti-virus support, thank you.
Translation issues aside, they do 'fess up honestly:
Cause
The lack of production management, computer virus has been contaminated with the camera.
"At the same time, consumers should learn to always ensure Autorun is disabled, and scan any device for malware before they use it on their computer"
But what if that malware, as it seemingly often is these days, is an actual intentional part of a product?
A system has to load the image over usb! so maybe that system has a worm on it.
Why isn't the memory card formatted and completely blank?
No, companies should stop selling memory cards with unnecessary crap installed.
On a fully secured (DEP, non Admin account, all updates) Windows machine, I can see "quarantined" items which all appear to be "autorun.xxx.worm" , pick anything you like. It is already out of hand.
If something happened like this on Apple OS X land, Apple would roll out an operating system update and disable Autorun. Perhaps, they could show a help document about installing applications with double clicking.
Shrink wrapped/boxed software is _dead_. Even if it is not dead, it is trivial to add the "install software" control panel back. Just a line needed to be on box or "driver cd". That is all. It won't be the first time some convenience is given up for security. How many times people install the same software anyway?
Jesus, don't you guys ever get tired of bashing windows?
Not as long as the ongoing barrage of malware built on Windows bugs continues and the PHBs of the world keep shoving Windows "solutions" down our throats at work while the bulk of computer-using humanity continues to use it at home.
Once it's no longer a blight on humanity we'll stop telling everybody what a blight on humanity it is. (Maybe we'll occasionally reminisce about what a blight on humanity it WAS, once that utopia arrives. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I've ran into this worm before (or one like it). One of my clients got an external HDD full of video data. They're into video production (not porn), so often they will require data from their clients. Anyways, this worm hides in a fake Recycle Bin folder which is executed by the autorun.inf file. In turn, the infected PC will replicate to all possible drive letters. Once on a server share, all other clients will soon get infected.
It's real annoying. But if all your PCs and Servers have an up-to-date anti-virus scanner, it they should now all prevent from getting infected.
Life is not for the lazy.