Insignia Digital Photo Frames Shipped With a Virus

Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:14PM EST

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A frightening new computer virus is making the rounds, and it's coming in through an unlikely source: Those cute, innocuous, and unavoidable digital picture frames.

SFGate has the story of a nasty piece of malware that has been riding along with Insignia brand photo frames, which were largely sold in Best Buy and Sam's Club stores (and possibly other outlets) over the holidays. The virus, which I've yet to find an actual name for, is reportedly "easy to clean," according to Insignia, but at least one IT expert (who was running antivirus software) tells a horror story about it, saying it took him 12 hours to rebuild his own, infected machine. All from simply plugging the frame into his PC.

This is hardly the first time that a technology product has shipped with a virus infection. Apple made headlines in 2006 for shipping a Windows virus on numerous video iPods. In recent years, products from Creative Labs, TomTom, Seagate, and even a cheap McDonald's gadget have come from the factory bearing unwanted gifts.

But infected photo frames represent an even trickier scenario since many of the people using them are likely to be computer novices as opposed to, say, those plugging in a high-end GPS.

Worried about your own new frame? The good news is that the damage appears limited to Insignia frames and only the 10.4-inch model (model number NS-DPF-10A). If you're sitting on one of these that you haven't yet plugged in, don't connect it to your computer; call Insignia at 877-467-4289 for instructions on what to do. If you have a different model frame, you should be OK for now.

Comments on Insignia Digital Photo Frames Shipped With a Virus

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  • 26 Posted by kungfugrip101 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:54PM EDT Report Abuse

    This is potentially the most useless article of all time. How about some actual information...how this happened? What is the virus? How do you clean it? Lazy journalism at its best...

  • 27 Posted by edtbalto on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:52PM EDT Report Abuse

    What, pray tell, does this virus do?

  • 28 Posted by adaeron on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:45PM EDT Report Abuse

    Many of the recent "hardware virus" (all of the ones that I am aware of) are from devices that are produced in China and Taiwan. Now considering that our great Red trading partner has long been the leader on countless hacking attacks to US government and industry IT systems; it hardly seems surprising that suspicious virus' are being loaded into home use hardware. What the hackers may gain by the use of singular loads is something I have not been able to work out yet. Perhaps this is what the security types would call a 'probe event'; an test run to see how to develope and distribute a mass market virus set to do who knows what. Anyone remember SkyNet?

  • 29 Posted by idislikesushi on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:22PM EDT Report Abuse

    I purchased three for gifts at an after Christmas sale and have them sitting in my closet now. I guess I better get them back to Best Buy ASAP. As for the Insignia brand, I've had one of their dvd players for 3 years and it's been through a lot between my now 3 y/o & traveling, etc. It's held up better than the Sony I paid $200 for 18 months ago. I guess sometimes you just get a bad apple.

  • 30 Posted by livinghistory360 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:54PM EDT Report Abuse

    If it can be done with these things, picture frames and iPods at the factory . . . what about electronic voting machines? Where will it end?

  • 31 Posted by serpent_in_paradise on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:14PM EDT Report Abuse

    It's curious that malicious code writers haven't killed all of the major anti-virus software packages. Could it be that those writing anti-virus software are also writing the malicious code? Talk about job security!

  • 32 Posted by shopping_cart_freak on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    this sux dude i can tell you right now that theres no pooint in buying electronics now cus you never know when a dangerous virus is part of the software...why do thes ethings got to be so complicated?

  • 35 Posted by ad6rv on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:45PM EDT Report Abuse

    Beware of anything made in China. I have had nothing but trouble with China made products. Had a toaster that was made in China that had an electronic failure that cayset the toaster to stay on and almost started a fire in the house. had a shredder made in china worked for 10 minutes and never worked again, another electronic failure. have a Chinese tractor terrible quality. Bad hydrolic seals and bad steel. Bad quality throughout.

  • 36 Posted by edgy14u on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:52PM EDT Report Abuse

    There are more sinister aspects to all this. I predict you will see a 64-byte come out of MS NEXT, keeping all of us in the 32-byte world so there will be NO viruses abound, NO terrorism communicato, (that can't be traced) and THEREORE: NO NEED FOR PC SECURITY SOFWARE! Now..., can you guess who is fighting that from happening? Hint: You HAVE to buy their software or else your PC will "BLOW-UP"!

  • 37 Posted by nikkor13 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:38PM EDT Report Abuse

    Seems easy snough to purchase only frames that use a media card. Load the card on your computer then plug it into the frame. Paint it with some red fingernail polish or something and never insert the card back into your computer after that. One-way trip only for the card.

  • 38 Posted by dwgreen on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:50PM EDT Report Abuse

    I doubt this is a virus...rather a piece of software that the company manufacturing the frames wanted on the device. Using the word virus makes it seem arbitrary...like the people who made the device didn't know this software was on there. This sort of thing happens all the time. You buy something like a usb memory stick and the first time you plug it in, it automatically loads a bunch of software onto your computer. There should be laws preventing devices from loading any software that is not essential to the advertised functionality of the device. Also microsoft should change the default behavior of windows so that usb devices cannot automatically load software without prompting the user.

  • 39 Posted by aerowerks2000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:46PM EDT Report Abuse

    yeah thats right mix lawyers into it, that will solve the problem, MAYBE IN 10 YEARS OR SO WHEN THEY GET RICH OFF OF THE LAWSUIT AND LEAVE US WITH 20cent SETTLEMENTS,

  • 40 Posted by onecpudr on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:45PM EDT Report Abuse

    The virus is a software program that can damage files in your computer. This particular one is a worm and is written to steal gaming passwords. I heard on my local news station reported that this particular virus was very sophisticated and most likely written by a group of people rather than one person. They reported that it was not a far leap for this particular virus to be written to steal passwords for banking and credit card sites. You can prevent this from happening by having up to date virus protection on your computer.

  • 41 Posted by semcclure98 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:12PM EDT Report Abuse

    This is exactly why I would love to lobby for tougher laws. People that ruin other peoples pc's should get atleast one day in jail for every day each victims computer is messed up. lol

  • 42 Posted by hockgoalie00 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    I actually bought this frame for my Girlfriend for Christmas. But we have Macs, so no worries.

  • 43 Posted by martin_363 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:09PM EDT Report Abuse

    I would say it simply came from a factory in China, where they don't have ANY anti-virus software at all running on the Windows machines they used to program the picture frames. Not a conspiracy, just typical Chinese business practices. Get it done CHEAP!!!!!

  • 44 Posted by trobertson98 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    What country were these picture frames manufactured in and shipped from?

  • 45 Posted by gkarl3rd on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:09PM EDT Report Abuse

    In response to #15... total Geeks like Bill Gates...

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