Apple iPod Eats a Microsoft Windows Computer Virus and Lives!
October 20th, 2006 by Henry
Do you own an iPod, Creative Labs or other brand of MP3 player? Be really careful about sharing music and other files with friends and family members or your computer just might get a virus.
Yesterday’s big technology story was about Apple’s iPods being shipped out from their manufacturing site with a Windows virus know as the RavMonE.exe. Of course, Apple was quick to point out the source of the “Real Problem” here… “As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses” … but they were good enough to take just a little of the blame for themselves, … “and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.”
This event and the news around it help to point out a serious problem that goes beyond copyright and legal questions about file sharing. Using an MP3 player or a USB drive to share files between computers can cause huge problems for you. As was pointed out by Apple in their news release, the iPod was able to function but, connecting a virus infected iPod to your computer and opening that file could infect your Windows PC.
This is one more reason to have anti-virus software installed on your computer and to keep it updated at all times. Then, if you connect a device that has infected files your software has a good chance of “seeing” the infected file(s) and cleaning them before your computer is damaged.