Malware Infected Japanese Camera Arrives in Market

Accepting the reports that malware was shipped with its product, Olympus Japan said that its digital camera named Stylus Tough 6010, which was in the Japanese market for sale, had its memory card loaded with virus.

Sophos, an online security company, states that the virus doesn't cause risk to the camera as such as its presence inside the internal memory of the device cannot make it active on the Stylus Tough. However, the autorun worm can cause an infection to the Windows computers.

When users attach the gadget to the USB drive of their PCs, they can have the autorun virus transmitted to their Windows PCs, thereby effectively infecting the systems.

However, all the cameras of the Olympus Stylus Tough brand aren't affected. Olympus Japan in an advisory states that merely 1,700 units are at risk. Meanwhile, buyers can examine whether there is malware inside their camera by examining their serial code through a widget that can be found on Olympus' website.

Unluckily, the website functions only in Japanese language, so it's little useful for businessmen and tourists who might have purchased a Stylus Tough 6010 camera during an official trip or vacation inside the country. Nevertheless, if they've anybody to do a translation, the situation can surely be different.

Owing to the incident, Olympus apologized and promises that it'll leave no stone unturned, henceforth, towards enhancing the company's procedures of quality control.

The security researchers stated that there had been other consumer devices previously contaminated with malware. These were Apple Video iPods and TomTom satellite navigation gadgets. Similarly, during 2010, IBM inadvertently distributed malware-contaminated USB memory sticks at an IT security meet.

Thus, the security specialists suggested that given so many incidents of the above type happening, an increasing number of organizations required to pay attention to adopt improved quality control so that virus-infected gadgets didn't enter the market. Simultaneously, they added that consumers needed to practice turning off their Autorun and scrutinizing all gadgets for malware prior to utilizing them on their PCs.

Related article: Malware Authors Turn More Insidious

» SPAMfighter News - 6/16/2010