Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have reminded
users of the importance of computer security following the
disclosure that digital photo frames sold in the holiday season
carried a virus.
Insignia NS-DPF10A digital photo frames, which connect to PCs
via USB, were "contaminated with a computer virus during the
manufacturing process" according to a notice posted on the company's
website.
Insignia published information about the
infected products on its website.
Retail giant Best Buy is the exclusive vendor of Insignia
products, and has said it is trying to contact customers who have
purchased the 10.4 inch picture frames.
"The good news is that the virus which has made its way onto
some of the digital photo frames has been around for some years,
and just about every anti-virus product should have no difficulties
in intercepting the infection," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "From that point of view, Best
Buy is lucky, and things could have been a lot worse. Their
challenge now is getting a message to the many people who may have
purchased the frames in the run-up to the holidays and may not have
the right protection in place. Technology producers need to not
lose sight of data security, and be careful that malware doesn't
creep onto their devices at manufacture."
Other consumer gadgets to have been affected by virus infections
in the past include the TomTom satellite
navigation device and Apple
Video iPods. In 2006, the Japanese subsidiary of McDonald's
recalled 10,000 MP3 players after discovering that they had been
infected by a spyware Trojan horse.
Sophos experts note that the virus infection on the digital
photo frame only affects Windows computers, not devices running Mac
OS X or Linux.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.