Storage
Seagate Serves External HDDs with a Side of Virus
Seagate Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 external HDDs get hit with the Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah virus
The hard disk drive (HDD) market is a relatively boring one. Sure, there are capacity increases in the mobile and desktops sectors every once in a while, but spindle speeds have stayed relatively the same — HDDs don’t exactly have the same sex appeal as quad-core processors or high-end graphics cards.
Seagate, however, is making news these days not for how fast or capacious their new drives are; but for what’s included on them from the factory. Seagate is warning customers that a small batch of its 500GB Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 external drives shipped with the Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah virus. The company blames a Chinese sub-contract manufacturer for the problem.
According to Seagate, at least one drive was affected with the virus. PC World reports, however, that as many as 1,800 drives were infected.
Seagate urges customers that purchased a 500GB Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 to scan the drive with antivirus software that has the latest virus definitions installed. For those that don’t have antivirus software installed, Seagate provides a download link for a 60-day trial of Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0.
