Posted by SecExtra on January 26th, 2008

As Spyware and Malware have a harder time trying to get in to computers over the internet it seems that cyberhackers are exploiting new ways in which to get their software installed. Last year there were several reports of USB drives and devices coming with minor tojan scripts on straight from the factory, indeed Apple in 2006, for example, shipped video iPods that were infected with a Windows virus during manufacturing, but nothing that would render a computer useless and this is what makes this story so interesting.

Rick Sandy got a new digital photo frame as a gift from his Wife. Like any other person he plugged it into his computer to start downloading some family images to display on the device. Only a matter of moments passed before his computer locked up and he had to restart, only to find that Norton had also now been disabled before finally not being able to get into the OS at all.

What makes this more startling is that this took place on the computer of a IT expert, meaning that many more preventative measures had been taken before this frame was even introduced to the system and yet an infection still took place. Malicious software code has turned up on a wide range of popular electronics, from digital photo frames to compact flash cards to MP3 players - even MP3-playing sunglasses - and retailers are scrambling to respond.

More info @ SFGate

Though nobody knows how widespread the infections are it still goes to show that even if you are careful you can still be vulnerable to attack from the most unlikely places.