Spyware Adware Removal

TOM TOM has a virus?

Monday, 05 February 2007

Popular navigation aid TomTom has admitted that a batch of its latest devices have shipped with a virus already installed on them.

The infected GO 910 devices were all manufactured in a one-week period around October 2006, the company said, and the affected systems are running version number 6.51 of the TomTom software.

It refused to say how it was that malware had been installed on its products, but warned that infected versions of the GO will try to copy the malicious software to a PC, when connected. News of the infection was first reported on Sunday. TomTom rated the malware as "low risk" and said that it is detected by many anti-virus products. A "small, isolated number" of systems are affected, the company claimed.

Infected GO 910s include Trojan horse and virus software that has been blocked by anti-virus vendors since June 2006, said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior research engineer with Kaspersky Lab.

One of the files, called Backdoor.Win32.Small.lo, uses the Windows AutoRun feature to try and make Windows run the other malicious software on the device, once it's been connected to the PC, he said.

TomTom isn't the first company to make this kind of mistake. Apple accidentally shipped malware with some of its iPods last October, for example. The malicious software often gets installed when an infected PC is used to test or configure the devices.

However, the fact that the TomTom malware had been known for months when it was installed on the GPS devices reflects badly on the company, Schouwenberg said. "We found the malware in June," he said. "It means that someone around the product line is either not using anti-virus, or they're using bad anti-virus."

Welcome to Spyware & Adware Removal

Saturday, 12 June 2004

So why are you here at Spyware Adware Removal? As if I didn't know - If your lucky you'll just have a interest in the current scourge of the net known as spyware and the damage that it does. But more probably than not your PC is already infected and you are looking for a spyware adware removal method, basically a means of cleaning it all up. Well hopefully we can help!

Spyware is not a new concept in fact it is thought that the first users of the term were Zone Labs in a press release for the Zone Alarm Personal Firewall in 1999. The term is most commonly used to descibe a range of products that perform different functions:- unrequested advertising (pop-up's galore), information haversters, re-routers that deliberately redirect page requests to illegally claim commercial site referral fees and or pornograhic sites, and perhaps worst of all the phone dialers many of which are also pornographic.

Spyware, Adware, Malware all of these have a slightly different twist and many overlap causing even greater problems. We won't discuss there differences here as no doubt you are in a hurry to solve your own particular problem but feel free to browse the relevant section of the site for a more detailed desciption.

It is important to remember however that not all software of this nature is Spyware, not in the true sense of the word anyway. If the company producing the software fully informed you of how the software operates, the data it collects and who it shares it with, then they can hardly be accused of spying can they - problem is of course that as a rule they don't.

If you are infected don't worry, more often than not there is a cure and believe it or not you are in good company, in fact it has been estimated by the National Cyber-Security Alliance, that spyware has affected 90% of home PCs at some point.

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