HP Sells Malware Drives
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This is really disheartening. The infection comes with the purchase:
“Hewlett-Packard Co. has been selling USB-based hybrid flash-floppy drives that were pre-infected with malware, the company said last week in a security bulletin.”
link: HP admits to selling infected flash-floppy drives
Asking the security experts who work with malware on a daily basis, the question was “how does one protect from this kind of infection?”. The answer was that hardware has be scanned for security and, ideally, on a test system that can contain any malicious programs. Now, how many people are going to do that… or even think about doing that?
Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster: http://flyinghamster.com/
Tags: hewlett packard, malware, security, scans, hardware
2 Comments
David
April 8th, 2008
at 2:55pm
Nobody seems to have commented as to how or where exactly in the production process this has happened. Spies in the camp or a disgruntled employee? Someone plugging in their own infected stick at some stage in testing? How has the malware spread to the production line? This things obviously don`t happen by themselves and it sounds to me as if HP need to put their house in order. Doesn`t exactly inspire confidence in their products, does it?
BlackWolf
April 9th, 2008
at 2:19am
Seems to me, that if a hardware manufacturer makes a product, then they should (logically) scan random samples of the product using a variety of virus/malware scanners.
It also seems to me (again, quite logically) that a hardware manufacturer has a responsibility to ensure that their hardware is not going to cause harm to someone’s data due to either negligence, or malicious intent.
Finally, if the hardware manufacturer’s products do cause harm to someones system (either hardware or software) then that manufacturer liable for the damages.
HP pushing it off on the people that purchase their products, is another way for them to drive away business. The proper response would have been for HP to immediately effect a recall of their infected product(s) and offer either a one-for-one exchange or an upgrade for the trouble.
Just my 2¢ for what it’s worth!
BlackWolf