Yet another reason not to buy ‘made in China’

Pre-installed viruses on electronic devices such as iPods. American businesses, such as Apple, that are affected, blame sloppiness in manufacture, due to China’s Wal-Mart like “low manufacturing prices everyday” creating crap.

But sloppiness is the simplest explanation, not the only one.

If a virus is introduced at an earlier stage of production, by a corrupt employee or a hacker when software is uploaded to the gadget, then the problems could be far more serious and widespread.

Knowing how many devices have been sold, or tracking the viruses with any precision, is impossible because of the secrecy kept by electronics makers and the companies they hire to build their products.

But given the nature of mass manufacturing, the numbers could be huge.

“It’s like the old cockroach thing — you flip the lights on in the kitchen and they run away,” said Marcus Sachs, a former White House cybersecurity official who now runs the security research group SANS Internet Storm Center. “You think you've got just one cockroach? There’s probably thousands more of those little boogers that you can’t see.”

For example, stuff like this doesn’t sound “accidental”:

Jerry Askew, a Los Angeles computer consultant, bought a new Uniek digital picture frame to surprise his 81-year-old mother for her birthday. But when he added family photos, it tried to unload a few surprises of its own.

When he plugged the frame into his Windows PC, his antivirus program alerted him to a threat. The $50 frame, built in China and bought at Target, was infested with four viruses, including one that steals passwords.

Nor does this:

In one case, digital frames sold at Sam’s Club contained a previously unknown bug that not only steals online gaming passwords but disables antivirus software, according to security researchers at Computer Associates.

That said, wouldn’t you love to see smug Steve Jobs get slapped with a class-action lawsuit if he doesn’t actually do something about this?

Actually, Apple has commented more on the issue than some American companies, such as major electronics distributor Best Buy. And, none of the Chinese manufacturers AP contacted for the story would utter a peep.