Infection alert: Insignia 10.4-inch photo frame kindly bundled with trojan

We haven't exactly gotten a torrent of email complaints from angry Best Buy customers, but for anyone wondering why the $230 Insignia 10.4-inch photo frame got pulled from shelves last week, here's your answer: they were manufactured, like devices sometimes are, with a supposedly "old and easily removed" trojan. Funny, though, that the internal memo we got has Best Buy dragging its feet, intending to send a letter to potentially infected customers only "once a solution has been tested and confirmed." Here's a solution: recall the frames and send everyone some anti-virus software and a free appointment with the Geek Squad, instead of letting sites like ours break the news that Best Buy isn't moving fast to fix its digital security mishaps. The memo is posted after the break.

--snip--
Earlier this month, it came to our attention that some units of the Insignia 10.4-inch digital photo frame (SKU 8483866) have a known Trojan virus. This virus was pre-installed during the manufacturing process. It affects only Windows applications and will only be initiated if the digital picture frame is connected to a PC via a USB cable. Customers who have not connected the digital picture frame to a PC, or those who have updated anti-virus software should be fully protected.

While the virus is old and is easily removed from the picture frame by up-to-date anti-virus software, all units were pulled from shelves the first week of January as a precautionary measure to protect our customers. Those units will be returned via the standard warehouse send back process and the model is now discontinued. Once a solution has been tested and confirmed, a letter will be sent to customers who purchased the product. Geek Squad employees have instructions to resolve the issue in the meantime. If a customer returns one of these units to your store or has questions or concerns about a virus, please direct them to the Geek Squad. Please note: No other Insignia digital picture frame products are affected by this issue.

[kepper @ Jan 17th 2008 11:51AM]

If I bought some food from the supermarket, got home and my whole family got sick, and then I found out the company knew about it was causing sickness and didn't do anything about it..
i'd be a bit pissed off.

my personal health and the health of my computer go hand in hand. don't use my metaphor against me. heh

[Flashpoint @ Jan 17th 2008 12:27PM]

I used to work for Best Buy years ago while I was finishing College.
First of all, understand what Insignia is...

Insignia is a product produced exclusively for best buy which is usually Chinese made and extremely cheap. This inlcudes HDMI (and other HD cables), converters, adapters,etc. Best Buy marks these items up usually over 300% in order to place them right below the compeitor's prices.

An Insignia Photo Frame might cost $20 - $50 less than the lowest price compeititor.

All this stuff is low quality and buying it is playing russian roulette with your money. I actually hope this makes big headline news because considering what BEST LIES charges for Geek Squad service, it isn't illogical to consider the possibility that they are poisoning PC's just to get people to use their crappy Geek Squad service.

Next time I see one of those stupid volkswagons I'm running them off the road

[John @ Jan 17th 2008 12:39PM]

Who knew that Insignia was so concerned about safe sex?

[Ellianth @ Jan 17th 2008 3:07PM]

Are you people seriously complaining about getting more than you paid for? Come on! You buy a digital picture frame and get a free piece of software, what more could you want? You buy some food and get some extra stuff in the can, be happy!

;P

[Mike @ Jan 17th 2008 11:51AM]

A digital photo frame seems like an odd thing to pack a back-door onto...

[Kamokazi @ Jan 17th 2008 11:55AM]

Yeah, only standard photo frames need back doors to load the picture.

[JC @ Jan 17th 2008 11:51AM]

The Trojan scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail would have been funnier. I'm just sayin'.

[TJ Johnson @ Jan 17th 2008 11:56AM]

LOL I get it...cuz the article is about Best Buy and Geek Squad and anything that they do is funny (or sad). Troy was too serious of a movie for this article.

[aardvark sandwich @ Jan 17th 2008 11:54AM]

ROFLMAO.

Best buy doesn't know what a trojan horse IS.

[Can @ Jan 17th 2008 11:54AM]

I sometimes wonder what people are trying to do?
Why would on Earth anything come with a trojan?!

[Can @ Jan 17th 2008 11:56AM]

That's why they pack it to it.
No one would think...

[NHAnimator @ Jan 17th 2008 12:20PM]

Did you just reply to yourself?

[Can @ Jan 17th 2008 12:50PM]

Nope, it was Reply to another post above, I clicked Reply under it, the page navigated down to comment posting as usual, but when I added it it just wasn't replied to that topic. Quite weird, but anyway, thanks for notification.

[mike @ Jan 17th 2008 12:01PM]

Picture Frame for a price of an LCD TV of the same size... lol, I think stores should only offer this junk for sale so that they shoot everyone that buys any of this shit on their way out of the store. lol... (just kiddin)

[BigD145 @ Jan 17th 2008 12:19PM]

"Once a solution has been tested and confirmed" Oh, you mean like wiping the memory (SSD or HD or whatever it is) a few times and reinstalling the software WITHOUT the trojan? Yes, please test this solution that has never been tested or confirmed before.

[Daniel @ Jan 17th 2008 12:23PM]

to correct the problem they should have fire dog fix it or pay the customer repair bill where ever they deiced to go. geek squad sucks and from past experiences cause more problems then they can fix.

[ScOObyDoo @ Jan 17th 2008 12:27PM]

A free appointment with the Geek Squad?

You want people to be screwed with TWICE?

[Ryan @ Jan 17th 2008 12:31PM]

We did get this exact photo frame for my in-laws over christmas and I remember getting a virus warning from Norton when we hooked up the frame to a PC but since Norton sometimes acted buggy I didn't think anything of it and just told it to resolve the issue. Nice of Best Buy to alert us.

[DT @ Jan 17th 2008 12:49PM]

It's likely that the PCs at the manufacturing plant were infected with the trojan, and when the frames were connected for the software upload, they got infected too. I doubt this was a devious plot to gain access to picture frame memory (for nefarious reasons I cannot comprehend...I don't believe these have network connectivity of any kind, so a trojan would do you no good).

[josh @ Jan 17th 2008 5:50PM]

I wonder if it was the same plant that made the infected iPods. They all tend to subcontract out to the same cutrate vendors.

[Dave @ Jan 17th 2008 1:11PM]

Had the same problem with a Mustek photo frame I purchases as a gift for christmas. The on access antivirus software caught it.

Great delivery method for getting all those geeks that say "I don't need AV because I only download stuff I know is safe".

I say be ware of ANY device that mounts as a USB storage drive, there are more and more things on the market that do this now.

[emp @ Jan 17th 2008 1:14PM]

Insignia is just private label. The manuf could be anyone, big or small. And yes, this was a screw up, and they are going to make it right - doing free virus removals for all of those affected.

[David Parrot @ Jan 17th 2008 3:03PM]

That is why I mostly use a Mac. Sometimes Linux on the PCs and my home servers. My PCs Has to be locked down for everything that is connected... even a Photo Frame!

[hf1306 @ Jan 17th 2008 3:27PM]

I laugh because on December 20th, I bought a frame from CompUSA adn it too came with a virus. It was their Gearhead 10.4 inch model.

Not only did it infect my computer after attaching the USB cable, it also copied itself onto any media cards I had inserted.

The trojan Kaspersky found was "Virus.Win32.VB.bu". The hidden files on the frame were EXPLORER.exe and Autorun.inf.

Does anyone know if that's the same virus found on the Insignia one?

[OG Style @ Jan 17th 2008 4:36PM]

I got a MP3 player Target gift card last year. When I pluged it in my computer my virus scanner picked up a Trojan virus. I called target and it was like pulling teeth to get anyone to understand what I was talking about. Needless to say I got no where with them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/getofab/309674717/

[Tim Sendek @ Jan 17th 2008 7:37PM]

I got a "Portable USA" brand frame for Christmas with the same problem. Looks just like the one in the pic. (Also, the remote didn't work and the crappy Amazon seller wouldn't take it back - never buy from ANTOnline!)

[Kevin Ripley @ Jan 25th 2008 1:05AM]

Thats what you get for buying insignia.

[Rockyci @ Jan 30th 2008 5:44PM]

Lol I love how there is a Best Buy ad right underneath this post. Did anyone else get that? Anyway as a current employee I remember when these frames got pulled, and I was like WTF? Even better was that we were substituting the Digital Spectrum frames for the same price, and that is the company who manufactured those insignia frames for us! Flashpoint is semi-correct in his post, in that the insignia products are usually very cheaply made but in many cases large manufacturers are providing these products. For a while we even offered a DVD recorder branded by Insignia but manufactured by LG.