preinstalled malware can/does occur
OLD NEWS;
Posted on 17.11.2007 at 11:27 in Tech News by Martin
The Taipei Times is reporting that around 1,800 new 300GB and 500GB external hard drives
manufactured by Maxtor shipped with malware on them.
http://www.rlslog.net/malware-preinstalled-on-new-hard-drives/
More Recently;
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Apr 7, 2008 12:00 pm
Hewlett-Packard has been selling USB-based hybrid flash-floppy drives that were pre-infected
with malware, the company said last week in a security bulletin.
If a compromised drive is plugged into a USB port on any machine on the network, the
worms may spread "to any mapped drives on the server," HP's alert said.
The problem isn't limited to HP and the flash-floppy drives it sells for its servers.
In January, big-box retailer Best Buy Co. admitted it sold digital photo frames during
the 2007 holidays that contained malware. Best Buy did not recall the frames.
highly recommend reading the whole article!
http://www.pcworld.com/article/144207/hp_admits_to_selling_infected_flashfloppy_drives.html
take away: those USB ports are the current 'port of entry' to almost every system.
CAVEAT EMPTOR.