Digital Picture Frame Concern

[lucian]

While looking at another forum I came across a thread that mentioned digital pictures frames and a built in virus/trojan. The article referenced was from the San Francisco Chronicle.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../BU47V0VOH.DTL

I read the article and became concerned about the prospect. However I question how accurate the article is. Mind you I am NOT a computer guru. But the concern is still there. Probably heightened since I am not a computer guru.

I have one of the digital frames in question and used a CF2 card to store the images. After a week or so I took the card out of the frame, put it on my laptop and added one more image.

This week I got one of the wallet pix and needed to USB to the computer to download images to the unit.

I haven't seen anything suspicious on my computer. But I probably wouldn't notice unless the computer starting acting spastic.

The article's concern is that there is a built in virus in the digital picture frame. As a side note my wife's Compaq V6000 was made in Shanghai, China. My Toshiba Satellite A 105 was made in China. The Olympus E-Volt 500 that the images were shot on was made in China. I don't know where the CF was made but China is an option for the manufacturer.

Half the computer stuff is made in China. Therefore I reason, rightly or wrongly, that any computer stuff made in China could have something unnice already built-in. So I question the concern raised in the article.

Go figure.

//Edit to fix link//

[afrikaner07]

I don't know much, but I would think that putting something extra, like a virus on a digital picture frame would take extra time, and since the people in China seem to be after faster and cheaper solutions I wouldn't worry about those too many. Run your antispyware software on your computer and let it scan whatever USB drives that may have interacted with it. If its empty it means one of two things, 1) there is nothing there, or 2) there is no definition for the virus, so your software doesn't know its a virus. good luck, and sorry i couldnt be of any more service.

[Gambit]

There is a type of virus that can live in a special JPG file that an unpatched Internet Explorer is vulnerable to. If you're current on your windows patches you shouldn't worry about this one. That would be the most likely means of causing mischief with a digital picture frame, IMO.

For anything else, you'd either have to run something that had passed through the infected device, OR I guess it's possible there could be an "autorun" file placed in a USB storage device or built-in to a digital photo display. If it's built into the display like that you'd have to hook the display directly up to the computer to catch it. An autorun file would likely be visible on the storage device and would activate as soon as the device was connected to the Windows machine. All this is dependent on some hacker modifying the "operating system" before it was loaded into the picture frame, AND no one noticing during testing. The autorun would be a fairly obvious issue.

All possible, but fairly unlikely. The link in your post, Lucian, doesn't appear to be valid so I've not read the article.

[lucian]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../BU47V0VOH.DTL

I clicked on the article via the other forum. The copied the link. I just did a preview and the link worked.


Also I sent an email to Mustek. Maybe they will reply.

[Dobick]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/15/i...nally-thought/

This showed up on Digg the other day from engadget's website.

I do not have any digital picture frames, or know anyone personally who has them, so I really didn't read much further than the article. Hopefully you can find out more specifics. Good luck.

[Gambit]

Ok, link works now and I read the article. Looks like for these particular frames, they are using the autorun method and must be plugged directly into the PC. So transferring files either way only via a CF card, you would be safe from these.

They do sound ominous, though, based on this article. Very organized-crime looking as opposed to the mischievous hacker type. Thanks for pointing this out.