UK security agency MI5 has issued a warning regarding freebie flash drives and cameras. Apparently Chinese spies are handing them out to UK businessmen in hopes of infecting their computers with trojans and gaining access to corporate secrets.
Of course old-fashioned methods – sex and money – are still being used as well, but it seems that few people expect an innocent gadget gift to contain danger in the form of a trojan or malware. After all, why else would a security agency’s 14-page report be focusing on this espionage approach more than it did on other tricks?
I guess it’s time for me to become a bit more paranoid about the pile of flash drives I picked up at CES. [Times Online via IEEE]
Note: Pictured flash drive is not a known spy and belongs to Gadget_Guru
MaZ
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:40 AMThe cake is a spy…
or is it the stick is a spy???
Ash
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:53 AMThe stick is a cake?
I’m confused…..
justin
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 12:37 PMOMG the Chinese have found out how to bake cake?
we are all doomed.
maddogeco
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 1:15 PMdo poeple need to spy on the UK? they spy on themselves pretty well then accidentally leave the data on the train. silly poms
marztar
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 1:39 PMHeey those baking bastards!
This reminds me of the HTC hero I bought on ebay (shameful I know).. it had a trogan on the mini sd card.
I contacted them about it, they played dumb, I then threatened to report, they gave me loot.. now forgotten!
They sell thousands of them so I’m sure they got a few suckers on a nice list!
Chris
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 9:39 PMWhy the hell are people still leaving the ‘Shell Hardware Detection’ service on?
It’s the first thing I disable on any machine I deploy…