http://www.computer
world.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&art
icleId=9000907
By Robert McMillan
IDG News Service
June 02, 2006
Hewlett-Packard Co. on Thursday pulled a printer driver from
its Web
site after security vendor BitDefender reported that the
software was
infected with the same computer virus that infected HP's
drivers more
than five years ago.
A BitDefender partner notified the security vendor of the
infected
driver software on Wednesday, and the company's security
researchers
soon determined that it had the same Funlove virus that had
plagued HP
in December 2000.
BitDefender notified HP of the problem on Wednesday, and the
infected
printer driver was removed from HP's Web site early
Thursday, said
BitDefender spokesman Vitor Souza.
Until then, the virus was being distributed with the Korean
version of
the Windows 95/98 driver for HP's Officejet g85 All-in-One
printer. HP
no longer sells the all-in-one printer, and the current
antivirus
products are able to block it. So while the oversight is an
embarrassment for HP, it's unlikely that many users were
affected by
Funlove.
Previously, HP had inadvertently distributed the Funlove
virus in
Japanese printer drivers that were made available on the
company's Web
site. Souza believes that HP most likely neglected to remove
this
particular infected driver back in 2000. "Its just
like nobody had run
a test against antivirus [software]," he said.
Even for users who fall prey to the virus, the consequences
are not
severe.
When it gets installed, the Funlove pops up a text message
that reads
"Fun Loving Criminal," and then attempts to
reboot the PC. On Windows
NT machines, it attempts to change system settings so that
files that
can normally be seen only by administrators are visible to
all.
HP executives were not immediately available to comment for
this
story.
BitDefender is owned by Softwin SRL, based in Bucharest,
Romania.
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