Video iPods shipped infected with a known trojan - what the heck happened to quality control??
"We recently discovered that a small number - less than 1% - of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006, left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free. 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."
First, it is not a "virus", it is a "worm/trojan".
Second, it is one heck of a coincidence that barely 24 hours ago I was reading about the McDonalds Japan infected MP3 player scandal:
http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=40860
I am not upset at Microsoft, I'm upset at those in a position of responsibility at Apple and the contract supplier. If "up-to-date antivirus" catches this thing, then how the heck did it get through quality control? One little thing that Apple's press release doesn't mention is that detection of RavMonE (aka Troj/Bdoor-DIJ, Worm_siweol.a, Backdoor-DIJ and Worm.Win32.RJump.a) has been around since at least June this year.
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/trojbdoordij.html
http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_139985.htm
Regarding this "small number" of infected iPods, Apple says that "less than 1%" of Video iPods available for purchase were infected with this WORM/TROJAN. Well.... what was the total number available for purchase? 1,000? 100,000? A million? 10 million? Give us some figures guys so we can get some real perspective on this. How many reports Apple has seen is irrelevant - they are assuming that those infected know that they are infected, and where the infection came from. I'm betting that for the vast majority of victims it would never cross their minds that their Video iPod may be the source of infection. They'll blame "Windows", they'll blame Internet Explorer, they'll blame the Web sites they visit, they'll blame email, they'll blame IM, but you can bet they won't look at that little rectangular piece of Apple hardware sitting plugged into their PCs.
As for their statement "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,"..... I have to say excuse me??? We have a WORM/TROJAN that has been detectable since June.. iPods are shipped infected with this detectable WORM/TROJAN in September... and Apple are upset at Windows? Well, excuse them for not protecting your butts. Apple's quality control failed. Do me a favour and direct some of that anger at those in charge of quality control at your "contract manufacturer", and then explain to me how the hell that malware got onto those iPods in the first place! Who did what wrong?
After cleaning your Video iPod using an antivirus programme as advised by Apple, you will need to "restore" the software on your iPod. I cannot express in strong enough terms that this step must not be ignored, even if it means you are going to lose all of your saved songs and data.
Do NOT back up any files that are on the iPod. Wipe them and rebuild your library from scratch. The TROJAN in question has back door capabilities and you have no way of knowing what else may have got on to your system, and possibly your iPod, what damage may have been done to the files on it, or whether any of the files have been compromised in any way. You do not want to go to all the effort of cleaning things up, only to reinfect your system via a dangerous file masquerading as a song file.