Kids' gifts could host malware

[mercurial]

http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/170782.html?aff=newsletter

If you have bought your children gadgets that connect to your home PC for Christmas you could run the risk of infecting your PC with malware.

That's according to security firm DriveSentry, who said that cybercriminals often use removable devices - such as those that connect to PCs via USB port - to bypass firewalls.

John Safa, chief technology officer at DriveSentry said: "Removable devices have always presented hackers with the capacity to bypass an internet firewall through people unwittingly plugging viruses directly into a machine.

"Now there is the added risk that kids toys could be used as a vehicle to spread viruses and malware," he continued.

Safa recommends ensuring that you have some form of parental control on your PC so kids can't put your security at risk and to explain to them the potential dangers that could be lurking in their toys.

"Many kids are oblivious to online dangers and they could potentially begin downloading corrupt data and then transfer it from one computer to the next," Safa said.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Scary

Best to give the kids their own PC

 

[Hein_JHB]

The same happend to me.

My sister gave her son a mp3 player for Christmas and she 1st gave it to me so that i can copy mp3's to the player.

The player was baught new from clicks boksburg and when I inserted it in my pc's USB port, it transfered a virus or malware to my pc when it picked up the drive and I noticed it because my pc shows the system files and hidden files and I saw Auto.exe and autorun.inf and it was hidden. I got other mp3 players with no such files like that so it is a malware of virus.

I also noticed with spysweeper that the virus wants to connect to a IP address that was blocked with spysweeper