I ran across a post on TechRepublic about Seagate Technology (NYSE: STX) shipping hard drives infected with Trojans and since I've heard of this happening before, I thought it was worth posting a warning. According to the original article on ZDNet, antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab had discovered the existence of a virus on some of Seagate's Maxtor Personal Storage 3200 hard drives:
"The antivirus company identified the virus as Virus.Win32.Ruh.ah — malware that can disable virus-detection software, although its prime function is to search for online game passwords and send them to a server in China.
The affected units were manufactured by a subcontractor in China, said Seagate. As soon as the company learned of the virus's existence, it stopped shipments of the hard drives from its facility."
Seagate couldn't explain how the drives were infected and the subcontractor is now under investigation.
So, take the advice of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDNet:
"scan, or preferably wipe, all drives before bringing them into the ecosystem. Don’t assume that a drive is going to be blank and malware free. Trust no one. Same goes for USB flash drives - you never know what’s been installed on them."
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