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The "iPod virus" redux
Marketing seems to have taken over control of the blogs from some security vendors.
Kasperky Labs yesterday was first out the gate with a press release trumpeting the "detection" of the world's first iPod virus. Later that day Symantec and F-Secure joined the shouting match. Because malware and Apple helps to boost your Technorati ranking.
They all received the virus through their malware submission channels. As F-Secure shows on its blog, the author describes the malware as an "ipodlinux" virus and indicates that it affects Linux. The malware author is merely an attention seeker, but the security vendors blow this thing way out of proportion.
Symantec, Kasperksy and F-Secure all advertise the pest as an iPod virus. But as if they know that they are engaging in baseless fear mongering, they quickly disclose the fact that this virus is utterly useless and harmless, and has as much to do with the iPod as weapons of mass destruction did with invasion of Iraq.
But why then make all this noise about an iPod virus, if isn't?
Blogs from security vendors used to be a trustworthy source of news where fine security researchers would apply their expert filters to weed out the hoaxes from the genuine threats. As the iPod dud indicates, getting attention has taken over from doing a good job.
April 6, 2007 at 07:25 PM | Permalink
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