“It spreads by hiding itself on photo frames and any other portable storage device that happens to be plugged into an infected PC.”

The idea seems obvious and inevitable in retrospect, but I was startled by the news:

An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind.

“It is a nasty worm that has a great deal of intelligence,” said Brian Grayek, who heads product development at Computer Associates, a security vendor that analyzed the Trojan Horse.

The virus, which Computer Associates calls Mocmex, recognizes and blocks antivirus protection from more than 100 security vendors, as well as the security and firewall built into Microsoft Windows. It downloads files from remote locations and hides files, which it names randomly, on any PC it infects, making itself very difficult to remove. It spreads by hiding itself on photo frames and any other portable storage device that happens to be plugged into an infected PC.

The authors of the new Trojan Horse are well-funded professionals whose malware has “specific designs to capture something and not leave traces,” Grayek said. “This would be a nuclear bomb” of malware.

… The initial reports of infected frames came from people who had bought them over the holidays from Sam’s Club and Best Buy. New reports involve frames sold at Target and Costco, according to SANS, a group of security researchers in Bethesda, MD ….

- Deborah Gage, San Francisco Chronicle: February 15, 2008: Link.

Via Slashdot.

A virus which infects “any other portable storage device” — digital cameras? cellphones? — could go a long way towards taking over the world.

Combine this with “recognizes and blocks antivirus protection from more than 100 security vendors, as well as the security and firewall built into Microsoft Windows,” and you’ve got bad news indeed.