What is a big deal is that these USB sticks were infected by malware. Oops.
What's an even bigger deal is that the conference was a security conference:
IBM has apologised after supplying a malware-infected USB stick to delegates of this week's IBM AusCERT security conference.
The unlovely gift was supplied to an unknown number of delegates to the Gold Coast, Queensland conference who visited IBM's booth. Big Blue does not identify the strain of malware involved in the attack beyond saying it's a type of virus widely detected for at least two years which takes advantage of Windows autorun to spread ...
10 comments:
Huh. Seems like that shouldn't have happened on accident.
In the immortal words of N. Muntz, esq.: "Ha-ha!"
Jim
bluesun, it's hard to see how that would have happened on purpose. The brand damage is bad enough if it were accidental; it would be catastrophic (esp. to IBM's Internet Security Systems division) if it were intentional.
Sounds about right for IBM.. I deal with them at work as a supplier. How they get anything right with all the red tape is beyond me. Probalby forgot to put it in their spec that they didn't want the malware on the USB stick. . . .
I know this ain't my blog, but for some reason, I just absolutely gotta laff about this one. Just too funny NOT to. ROFLMBO
Shy III
JD, they were lazy. We gave out USB sticks once back at Big Tech Company, and we double checked to make sure there wasn't malware on them.
That's what I meant with my first comment. It just seems to me that they should come blank, and to have anything at all on them would require someone putting it there on purpose. I suppose it could have had some sort of demo program or something on it and the malware snuck in.
That's why I don't like memory sticks with any sort of software on them. It's also why I will from now on run Format on all memory sticks before I use them.
The only times in 25 years of running a PC we have ever had a real virus were (1) when Mrs. Graybeard attended a test engineering conference (mid 1990s) and (2) when I took a seminar from that test equipment company whose name is an anagram of Genital.
Kind of gives you the feeling that this is how they get spread.
Both the story and the pic made me giggle!
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