Investigators say the tainted Maxtor portable hard disc, made by Seagate, uploads information saved on the computer automatically to Web sites in Beijing

A shipment of Maxtor external HDDs, produced in Thailand by US-based Seagate and sold in Taiwan, has been found to be infected with Autorun trojans designed to gather sensitive data from machines connected to the storage devices. According to local reports, the Taiwanese government suspects Chinese involvement, as the devices are commonly used in government operations to provide data storage. Large amounts of sensitive government data are thought to have been harvested and passed on to web-sites based in China.

Following findings by the Investigation Bureau that portable hard discs produced by US hard 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…

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If your Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 unit is infected or to ensure that your unit is clear from this virus, install the latest virus definition list for your anti-virus software. As of October 2, 2007, 28 of the 32 anti-virus software titles have updated their virus definition list to include detect and clean this virus.

Antivirus Version Last Update Virus Name AntiVir 7.6.0.18 2007.10.01 TR/Autorun.BK Authentium 4.93.8 2007.10.01 (NOT UPDATED) Avast 4.7.1043.0 2007.10.01 Win32:Autorun-U AVG 7.5.0.488 2007.10.01 PSW.Generic4.TUP BitDefender 7.2 2007.10.02 Win32.Worm.Autoruner.I CAT-QuickHeal 9.00 2007.10.01 Worm.AutoRun.cn ClamAV 0.91.2 2007.10.02 Trojan.Delf-1251 DrWeb 4.33 2007.10.01 HLLW.Autoruner.175 eSafe 7.0.15.0 2007.10.01 Virus.Win32.AutoRun. eTrust-Vet 31.2.5178 2007.10.01 Win32/Rodvir!generic Ewido 4.0 2007.10.01 (NOT UPDATED) FileAdvisor 1 2007.10.02 (NOT UPDATED) Fortinet 3.11.0.0 2007.10.01 OnLineGames.EO!tr.pws F-Prot 4.3.2.48 2007.10.01 W32/Trojan.CDTB F-Secure 6.70.13030.0 2007.10.01 Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ji Ikarus T3.1.1.12 2007.10.01 Virus.Win32.AutoRun.bk Kaspersky Lab 7.0.0.125 2007.10.02 Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ji McAfee 5131 2007.10.01 PWS-LegMir Microsoft 1.2803 2007.10.02 Worm:Win32/Rodvir.gen NOD32v2 2563 2007.10.01 PSW.OnLineGames.NBR Norman 5.80.02 2007.10.01 W32/AutoRun.Z Panda 9.0.0.4 2007.10.01 Trj/QQPass.AGZ Prevx1 V2 2007.10.02 (NOT UPDATED) Rising 19.43.00.00 2007.10.01 Trojan.Win32.Delf.ady Sophos 4.22.0 2007.10.01 Mal/PWS-K Sunbelt 2.2.907.0 2007.10.02 Win32.Worm.Autoruner.I Symantec 10 2007.10.01 W32.Drom TheHacker 6.2.6.075 2007.10.01 Trojan/Dropper.JI VBA32 3.12.2.4 2007.10.01 Virus.Win32.AutoRun.cn

If you do not have any anti-virus software or if your anti-virus software hasn’t updated its virus definition list, then you can download and install this Kaspersky Lab Anti-Virus software application. Kaspersky Lab has provided Seagate customers a free 60-day fully-functional version of its Anti-Virus 7.0 software.

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Full story: TaipeiTimes.com

Seagate official release: Seagate.com