Chinese subcontractors blamed for trojan horses (on Maxtor disk drives)

[Newsjock]

Source: Taipei Times

Following findings by the Investigation Bureau that portable hard discs produced by US disk-drive manufacturer Seagate Technology that were sold in Taiwan contained Trojan horse viruses, further investigations suggested that "contamination" took place when the products were in the hands of Chinese subcontractors during the manufacturing process.

On Saturday, Seagate Technology LLC, the manufacturer of the Maxtor portable hard drive, said on its Web site (www.seagate.com) that Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 hard drives sold after August could be infected with the virus.

Anti-virus software manufacturer Kaspersky Labs also issued a similar warning. The hard drive has been temporarily pulled off the shelves and is no longer available for purchase.

The Investigation Bureau said the tainted portable hard drives automatically upload any information saved on the computer to Beijing Web sites without the user's knowledge.

Read more: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/11/12/2003387447

[alfredo]

1. I wonder if it was company policy or was it a bad egg?

[On the Road]

2. Very Likely it Was a Bad Egg

the company would be risking its entire business if it were found to be responsible. Not even ambitious Chinese businessmen are that short-sighted.

[alfredo]

4. You are probably right on that.

[On the Road]

12. That's Right -- It Depends on What They Were After

Credit card and social security numbers would likely be an individual. Proprietary or classified data might be an arm of the government behind the company.

[alfredo]

14. If AT&T could work with bush, a Chinese company might be working

with their government. In both instances the government will cover for them.

[On the Road]

16. Of the 32 Largest Chineses Companies,

31 are owned by the Chinese government. That makes certain kind of abuses more likely and others less likely.

[alfredo]

17. I didn't know that.

[On the Road]

18. I Got That from a Warren Buffet Interview

Some of the large Chinese corporations like Haier are composed of former communist cooperatives that went public some time ago. As I understand it, the government still owns a controlling interest sold a minority stake to Westerners making millions in the process. The military owns some corporations directly -- there's a kind of entreneurialism that originates from within government agencies. But it's managed at the very top. You get things like this:

On 01 July 1999, in an effort to become more competitive, China established ten new state-owned aviation corporations, including splitting AVIC (Aviation Industry of China), which ahd 560,000 employees, into AVIC I and II. AVIC I and II are both cooperators and competitors. AVIC I AND II are equal economic entities authorized by the state to make investments, operating as a state holding company under the direct supervision of the Central Government. The scope of business for AVIC I and AVIC II look similar, but have a different emphasis. Generally speaking, AVIC I focuses on large- and medium-sized aircraft while AVIC II gives priority to feeder aircraft and helicopters.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/avic.htm

The result of a large-scale government action like this is that China can build and entire new section of Xian devoted of aerospace including both factories and higher education very quickly at very reasonable cost. I suspect that eventually the command-and-control aspects of this will get them into trouble, but so far the results have been breathtaking.

[alfredo]

19. Corruption will be the down fall.

[leveymg]

5. A legitimate company might not do that, but an intel agency would sacrifice a company

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

[othermeans]

3. What were the websites? nt

[Cobalt-60]

6. Red Chinese pulling a fast one? Who would have thought

I use only Obsolete equipment. Not that there's anything on my system of Chinese Intelligence interest.
By the time my thrifty hands clap on to any gear I know its whole history.

[jordi_fanclub]

7. Strange... cannot find any reference to corroborate the article

At http://www.seagate.com or at http://www.maxtor.com there are nothing.
Neither at http://www.kaspersky.com (including their forums: http://forum.kaspersky.com/)

[Xipe Totec]

10. Strange, I did

If you have purchased a Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 product since August 2007 the product may be infected with a virus. Kaspersky Labs, a maker of anti-virus software, has alerted Seagate to the existence of a virus found on at least one Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 product. Seagate has traced this issue to a small number of units produced by a Maxtor sub-contract manufacturer located in China. Seagate quickly put a stop ship to units leaving the facility as soon as the company learned of the probable infection. All units now leaving the facility in question have been cleared of the virus and units in inventory are being reworked before being released for sale. However, some affected units may have been sold to the public before the problem was detected. Seagate apologizes for the inconvenience that has been caused as a result of this incident.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/personal_storage/ps3200-sw

[Randomthought]

8. Contradictory Info in Article

In one place it says this information is from Seagate's website but toward the end the article quotes
The publication asked Seagate to verify the information, but a company spokesperson said: "This scenario seems unlikely because the 3200 does not have any software preloaded on the drive so there is not an opportunity for a virus to be loaded. Yes, the drive is formatted, but I have never heard of a virus that lives in the master boot record."

I just asked my SO who is senior staff at Seagate and it was total news to him.
This may be true but I have serious doubts.

[CabalPowered]

15. I think the spokesperson is wrong.

Most external USB drives come loaded with software to autoexec drivers.

[Xipe Totec]

9. Remember, use a Trojan for safe sex, not safe computing nt

[fasttense]

11. Will the wonders of globalization and "free trade" ever cease? n/t

[Gman]

13. For that matter, Windows XP is one big trojan. Vista's even worse

the way they send information back and forth from MS. If there was any doubt, the MS phantom/stealth update a while back should have removed all.