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Apple Ships A Windows Virus-- Inside iPods.
That’s yet another great reason to own a Mac. For now. Who knows what tomorrow brings. Playlist has reported news from Apple that some iPods with video shipped after September 12, 2006 have a virus. It’s a Windows virus known as the RavMonE.exe which is well known to Windows anti-virus software. The RavMonE.exe will propagate on Windows PCs via hard drives and other mass storage devices. These would include external hard drives, removable media such as USB flash drives. As you might suspect, Apple is downplaying the incident and reported that the virus was limited to less than 1-percent of iPod shipments. 1-percent? Is that of total iPod shipments? That could be tens of thousands of iPods.
Are Macs affected by this iPod virus? The answer is a qualified yes. And no. No, Mac OS X will not be directly affected by the RavMonE virus. Macs running Windows could be affected. In an odd and ironic turn of events, Apple has posted a web page to alert iPod Windows users how to handle the iPod virus. Apple also provided links to Microsoft, Symantec, and McAfee antri-virus applications. Mac users, whether on PPC or Intel Macs, not running Windows will not be affected by this virus. While it’s unusual for an electronic manufacturer to ship a product with a known virus, it has happened in the past. Playlist also quoted Greg Joswiak, Apple’s VP of Worldwide iPod Marketing:
“As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.”
In this case no additional blame needs to be ascribed to Microsft’s Windows. Viruses, spyware, and malware are common to Windows users. Apple need only point a finger at themselves for letting another Windows virus spread via one of their own popular products. Why? What goes around, comes around. When viruses finally hit Mac OS X, I can just envision the USA Today full page ad by Microsoft: “Windows welcomes OS X to the world of PC viruses.” It could happen. • Article by Jeffrey Mincey • Published on Tuesday, October 17, 2006
• Category: News & Commentary • 5 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now
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Talk Back to Kate, Ron & the Mac360 staff s0ccurpr0 says:
To clear things up, Apple’s OS X software has had various viruses in the past. But to call them viruses would be wrong, as they did not directly damage or steal any information, as far as I know the viruses only tried spreading themselves. The funny part is though, Apple takes pride in their systems and immediately provided a new security update to stop them from working again. I’m just still happy Windows is dominating the market because otherwise virus makers *cough*symantec and mcafee*cough* will start to pay a little more attention to Apple. cheers! (If anyone has any more questions email me ) — Posted on Wed Jul 25 at 3:34 am by s0ccurpr0
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Will the techno world ever get rid of viruses? The latest report says Apple has been shipping a Windows virus on the new version of iPods.
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