Sunday, January 4, 2009

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words...Or A Nasty Virus.

Amazon.com warned customers last week that a Samsung digital photo frame product may be infected with a virus. When the device is plugged in and the software loaded, a virus then infects your computer.

The San Francisco chronicle's SFGate is reporting, "Among the frames reported to be infected this holiday season were a Samsung 8-inch frame sold by Amazon.com, an Element 9-inch frame sold by Circuit City and a Mercury 1.5-inch frame sold by Wal-Mart."

Yes, customers were warned.  But which customers?   According to this article, the folks being warned were those "customers running Windows XP."

Windows XP.  So, if you run Windows XP and have one of these frames, my advice is to take it back to the store immediately.   Next, get an anti-virus progam and do a complete scan of your system.  This virus has the potential to do real damage to you Windows computer system and compromising your privacy and financial security  "carrying code that logs keystrokes, steals data and calls out to other malicious code once it's installed itself on a PC."

Once you've cleaned your system, get Linux.  Get a used computer and install Linux.  Do it now!  Linux is free and a used computer can be had for free or a minimal amount of money.  Start using Linux.  Linux is immune to Windows viruses and malware.

The next time a virus warning like this takes place, hopefully you'll be fully running Linux.  You'll be safe, secure and happy to that you got rid of Windows.

Get Linux.

1 comment:

colonelcrayon said...

After six years of running Windows XP, I've never had any trouble with malware. I browse with Firefox and NoScript, run with a limited user account, and use ThreatFire (the only antivirus program that doesn't rely on the hopelessly stupid definitions-based scanning approach).

I prefer Linux for its greater possibilities for customization. Any OS can be secure for a competent user.