McDonald’s also distributed infected MP3 players in Japan.
Some digital music players are offering more than just tunes these days.
Apple’s support Web site today contains a posting warning customers that a small percentage of Video iPods shipped starting in September contain a Windows virus. This announcement follows a similar incident with fast-food giant McDonald’s, which distributed a series of virus-infected MP3 players in Japan as prizes in a contest.
In Apple’s case, the company says less than 1% of the Video iPods shipped after Sept. 12 contain the Windows RavMonE.exe virus, adding that only 25 incidents of the virus were reported to the company and that all Video iPods are now shipping virus-free. The RavMonE.exe virus affects only Windows PCs.
Apple, being Apple, took the opportunity to slam its favorite competitor in the posted warning.
“As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it,” reads the notice.
“Whom do you think the people that bought those iPods will be more upset with?” adds a blog entry dated today on security company F-Secure Security Labs’ Web site, sounding irked with Apple for trying to shift some of this bad PR onto Windows. “Let’s be clear, some Apple iPods have shipped with a virus that affects mass storage devices. So it might not be a Mac OS or an iPod issue. But this is an Apple issue, not just Windows,” the blog says.
McDonald’s Japanese subsidiary says it learned Oct. 11 that some of the MP3 players that were shipped Sept. 29 as prizes for an August contest were infected with “Trojan Horse Virus, Worm and Spyware,” according to a translation of the notice posted on the McDonald’s Japan Web site.
F-Secure’s blog says the infection is the QQPass password-stealing Trojan, and reports that some sources say merely plugging the infected MP3 player into a Windows PC would allow it to spread to the computer.
There were 10,000 winners of these MP3 players that came preloaded with original songs and were supplied by Marketing Store Co. in Hong Kong. McDonald’s officials are attempting to contact the contest winners and say the cause of the virus is under investigation.
Beyond the harm that these viruses may be causing owners of the infected music players, incidents such as these create negative PR for the companies distributing them that, if reoccurring, could damage their brand, says Dennis Szerszen, vice president with SecureWave, an endpoint-security software maker.
“One thing that Apple and McDonald’s have in common is they have a brand, and that brand has to portray trust to their consumers and users,” says Szerszen. Because Apple is a technology supplier to both consumers and enterprises, repeated security problems with its consumer brands could cause image problems with its enterprise offerings, he adds.
