Does Your New iPod Have a Virus?
News just to hand has reveled that Apple has discovered that a “small” number of video iPods that were made available for purchase after the 12th of September 2006 have a hidden surprise on them, a virus!
No specific numbers have been given but “less than 1%” of iPods that left the contracted manufacturer are believed to be affected. Apple say they have had less than 25 reports (that the users were smart enough to know about). These iPods may have the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. Most up to date anti-virus software will pick up and remove this virus. An overview of the virus from McAfee:
W32/RJump.worm is a worm written using the Python scripting language and was converted into a windows portable executable file using the Py2Exe tool. It attempts to spread by coping itself to mapped and removable storage drives and also opens a backdoor on an infected system.
The name differs to the one that Apple gives but is the same beast. More information about symptoms and removal from McAfee are available on their threat page.
Apple also give details regarding the threat and management on their Support page.
The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected and all video iPods are now shipping virus free.
I thought this was a bit of a joke though:
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.
Yeah, like it is the fault of the competitors OS! Glad they take some responsibility. They have a duty of diligence to ship secure products, I don’t believe that any “fault” lies with the user that decides to use Windows.