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Apple ships Windows Malware on Video iPods

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ipod2006 video
ipod2006 video

Video iPodApple has admitted that a number of Video iPods have been shipped containing Windows malware. In a statement on its website, Apple confirmed that some Video iPods available for purchase after 12 September 2006 left the company’s contract manufacturer carrying the RavMonE.exe malicious file.

Less than one per cent of the Video iPods shipped since that date are said to be affected.

iPod Nanos and iPod Shuffle devices are not reported to be carrying the malicious file, which can only activate on Windows computers.

"If you have bought a Video iPod in the last month there is a chance that it could have a Windows virus on it," said media gadabout Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

"The good news is that if you have kept your anti-virus software up-to-date then your security software should have no trouble detecting it before it can do any harm.”

However, Sophos warned that presently Apple is not displaying the correct name for the malware on its website, referring to it as the RavMonE.exe Windows virus.

"There are a number of different pieces of malware which use a file called RavMonE.exe and so we don't know at the moment precisely which Trojan horse or virus may have been shipped," added Cluley.

"The name RavMonE.exe actually comes from a perfectly legitimate program called RAV Anti-Virus so it would be wrong to call a piece of malware by this name. Hackers sometimes spoof the names of legitimate programs to cause greater confusion."

Sophos expects the malware to be a member of the W32/RJump virus family.

The gaff mirrors a problem earlier this week when it was reported that the Japanese subsidiary of McDonald's was recalling 10,000 MP3 players it had distributed as a giveaway.

The fast food giant had discovered that a spyware Trojan horse was contained on the device.