HP USB Key Complete With Worms

Hewlett-Packard Australia has notified people that USB keys transported with some of its HP Proliant file servers are infected with a worm, adding attention to the rising use of USB drives as a method to distribute viral infections.

The low danger worms, Fakerecy and SillyFDC, were found in a batch of 256MB and 1GB USB keys that shipped with the file servers. It is undetermined how many infected keys, used for installing optional floppy-disc drives to networked servers, were spread. An infected computer in the manufacturing plant is the likely reason of the incident.

The computer virus spread is not interpreted as an great threat, due in part to the low amount of estimated users still utilizing floppy disk drives for data storage and that most hackers don't find the computer virus valuable.

There has been other reports of digital photo frames, other hardware devices, and even software media coming out of the factory with malware. AntiVirus computer software, if up to date, should detect both of the viruses involved in the HP Proliant USB attack as long the Anti-Virus protection was installed after the floppy disk was added to the computer. Disabling auto-run thwarts both Fakerecy and SillyFDC and may be the advisable alternative.

HP's notice, via local security clearing house AUSCert, can be found here: http://www.auscert.org.au/render.html?it=9077. The SANS Institutes's Internet Storm Centre has advice on avoiding USB malware-related risk here: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4247.

Hardware devices going out of the factory with malware is becoming more common these days, increasing the need for good Anti-Virus security. For a limited time, you can have free internet virus protection.

Christopher is a security consultant for Lexan Systems L.L.C and founder of MX Police. For a limited time you can have free internet virus protection. You are welcome to reproduce this article on Computer Security related web site, as long as you reproduce the article in full, including this resource box and links to our websites.

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