iPod Virus

i've not heard of any DAP viruses yet, but they'll be coming for sure. there are already multitides of mobile phone, pda, and other handheld device viruses. DAP's will be affected sooner or later.

*edit* i remember reading about compressed audio viruses on slashdot a little over a month ago. will try and find link.

Originally posted by n3tfury
i've not heard of any DAP viruses yet.

they're not far away.....:eek:

Some of my songs are weird in that they play on iTunes, but on the iPod, they cannot be played. The iPod attempts to play them, but then gives up, and goes to the main menu. Maybe that's what your friend was talking about? It is in no way a virus:)

Yes there is, do a search on the forum for "diagnostic" or "disk" and it should turn up

Brings new meaning to the term "play" safe.

Heh heh.

But seriously, all the more reason to roll your own digital audio, or ensure you only download from reputable sources.

Cheers.

Originally posted by kgirlsbug
My ipod has been acting wierd lately, I keep getting file write error in Drive H right before windows crashes it
Any way to virus scan an ipod?

well if your not using a mac you can go into my computer if your comput er can see it on there. and you need a virus scanner, your right click and click on scan for viruses,,, just a thought

It could also be a corrupt ID3 tag. I've had a few of those cause my iPod to freeze.

Actually, an audio file cannot propagate a virus any more than a text file can.

Although the concept of computer viruses has taken on almost mythic proportions these days, it's important to understand exactly what a computer virus is.

Basically, a computer virus is nothing more than a set of nasty program instructions hidden within an otherwise legitimate program. When the legitimate program is executed, the nasty instructions are also executed, generally resulting in damage, infection of other files, or general electronic mayhem.

For a virus to propagate and cause damage or infect other files, it needs to be somewhere that it's going to be executed by the computer. While a data file could contain virus code, there wouldn't be much point, as data files are not executed by the computer, they are merely opened and read by other programs. A virus contained in a data file would simply be meaningless data, and would probably corrupt that particular file, but would not be able to cause any further damage.

Audio files are data files. They are not executed, they do not contain a set of program instructions, but rather simply contain musical information... they are merely read by another program (in this case, the iPod operating system itself).

So, basically, getting a virus on your iPod by uploading an "infected" MP3/AAC file simply can't happen.

On the other hand, I suppose a music file could affect your iPod if it were corrupted and that corruption somehow crashed the iPod operating system itself. This would not be a virus, but actually a result of a bug in the software on the iPod itself (ie, the iPod not being able to handle bad data properly). I suppose if these sort of bugs were widely known, then someone could deliberately build MP3 files with bad data to trip up the iPod.

However, again that would be a bug in the iPod software, not a virus, and would be Apple's problem to fix, and I would expect that simply removing (or not playing) the offending file would be sufficient to avoid the problem.

Originally posted by jhollington
Actually, an audio file cannot propagate a virus any more than a text file can.
I suspect if there was some MP3 or MP4 exploit that could be leveraged it could be done but it's not very likely. Remember the JPG Vulerability Exploit? Code could be launched simply by viewing a JPG file - but that was more of Microsoft OS issue.

Cheers.

Originally posted by jhollington
True, but I think that would still fall largely under the category of "OS bug" that I indicated above. In the case of the JPG exploit, that was just Microsoft being incredibly stupid in their software design. It may or may not be deserved, but I'm going to give Apple more credit than that... :)

Since the iPod OS is very thin, I would expect that the possibility of vulnerabilities like that creeping in is pretty slim.

So to be fair, it is thereotically possible. However, I wouldn't waste time worrying about anti-virus software for your iPod.
I'm in total agreement with ya.

Ive heard about these viruses, Not my main concern tho ...

Originally posted by luisev
Similar to the way images can now carry viruses, I'm sure someone will be able to figure out how to add them to music files. Check these out...

http://vil.mcafeesecurity.com/vil/content/v_101173.htm

http://vil.mcafeesecurity.com/vil/content/v_99121.htm

This enters your shared folders and music folder:
http://vil.mcafeesecurity.com/vil/content/v_99945.htm

So far they seem harmless, but people seem to be trying to figure out an infection method.

The best defense is to have an Anti-Virus software product like McAfee and to keep it current. One of the many problems people face is that they purhcase Anti-Virus software and never keep it current. They feel that once purchased all will be fine. Virus variants pop up all the time and if your AV software is not current it will not detect the new variant. Always make sure you update your AV definition files.

Similar to these variants, I'm sure that once someone has figured out how to add a virus to music files that a patch or update will be made available to the AV software to protect your music files. With products like the iPod and Shuffle becomming more and more popular, music files will without question become the next virus target. Think about it... what is shared more often than emails... Music!! As long as your PC is covered so will your iPod.

Being a software engineer I've seen viruses do many wicked things, materialize in different fashions and ones that cause complete havoc with others that just make you aware that there are exploits that aren't patched. It's a major issue, but if you are well protected and have back ups you will be fine...

That's pretty scary :eek:

I will agree completely that anti-virus protection these days is always an absolute requirement, and no computer should be without it. As others have pointed out, any virus on your PC can cause problems on your iPod if it's connected.

However, there's being safe and then there's being paranoid. There is a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) floating around about computer viruses these days, and while there are a lot of valid reasons for NOT downloading music from questionable sources, the fear of getting a virus should be the very least of them.

Originally posted by jhollington
I will agree completely that anti-virus protection these days is always an absolute requirement, and no computer should be without it. As others have pointed out, any virus on your PC can cause problems on your iPod if it's connected.

However, there's being safe and then there's being paranoid. There is a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) floating around about computer viruses these days, and while there are a lot of valid reasons for NOT downloading music from questionable sources, the fear of getting a virus should be the very least of them.

Originally posted by luisev

Your iPod is "safe" as it can't execute code, but if your PC becomes infected and you can't recover isn't your iPod effected at that point? You can't sync music, contacts, etc. Your main library is lost. I realize you can also "back up" your iPod back onto your PC, but it would be time lost and frustrating.



agree 100%

There ya go... let the fun begin...

Correct... I was speaking of guarding the PC only.