Tom Tom the satellite navigation Company has admitted that it shipped GPS navigation devices into Australia with two executable viruses loaded onto the system.
The $1000 TomTom GO 910 satellite navigation units went out the door in 2006 with viruses pre-installed. The devices were running version 6.51 of the TomTom software and contain the win32.Perlovga.A trojan and TR/Drop.Small.qp virus, which are present within the device’s copy.exe and host.exe files.
The problem was initially blogged about by tech journalist Davey Winder, who received a report from a TomTom user about the viral activity. The user had been told the infection wasn’t serious and to remove it using standard antiviral software.
TomTom has advised its users that the viruses “present an extremely low risk to customers’ computers or the TomTom GO 910” in a prepared statement. Users have been advised to make sure their antivirus definitions are up to date.
While the TomTom devices run on Linux and the two viruses are Windows-based, users could face infaction when attempting to back up the devices to their computers – a problem that may become relevant for Mac users running Windows via Boot Camp, CrossOver or Parallels Desktop for the Mac.
TomTom has stated that the infected host.exe and copy.exe files can be removed with standard antivirus software but not to remove the files manually. The company has also stated that it didn’t know how the devices had become infected initially, but was taking steps towards investigating the issue.
