Best Buy issues security warning on Insignia digital picture frames

Say cheese...not.

Best Buy is warning customers who purchased its Insignia 10.4-inch Digital Picture Frames that their device may be harboring a virus, according an advisory posted on its Web site over the weekend.

Insignia digital frames, with model number NS-DPF10A, may be infected with the virus, Best Buy states in its posting. The company is asking users to contact its Insignia customer care number, 877-467-4289, to determine whether their digital picture frame is infected and how to troubleshoot the virus that can travel through the USB cord and infect a user's PC.

Best Buy learned of the problem in the first week of January, after receiving several customer complaints, said company spokeswoman Nissa French. It took a couple weeks for the company to ascertain the problem, which it attributes to a virus that was loaded onto the devices during the manufacturing process.

(Credit: Insignia)

Best Buy, which sells the picture frames under its private label Insignia, has since pulled all remaining 10.4-inch Insignia picture frames and inventory from its shelves and Web site, and has discontinued the product's production. No recall, however, has been issued.

In the meantime, Best Buy is contacting all users who purchased the picture frames to warn them of the virus and determine whether their device has been infected, French said. She added that not all of the 10.4-inch picture frames are harboring the virus.

Users who connect their Insignia picture frame to a Windows based PC may be at risk, but no other platforms are affected, she noted.

And because the virus has been in existence for awhile, users' antivirus software may help inoculate the virus from the digital picture frame, she noted. Cameras and USB flash drives are also not affected.

Best Buy's digital picture frame virus is among a number of other holiday devices that have hit the scene with some funky security issues.

French, meanwhile, is checking into the number of users who purchased the Insignia 10.4-inch picture frame, as well as the name and type of virus that is loaded onto the device. Stay tuned...

[jltnol]

who wants to bet...

that the frame has some flavor of Windows OS embedded...

[perfectblue97]

Not the first time

This isn't the first time that this has happened. A few years ago an MP3 player (From Creative, I think) was found to have a virus on it.

they'd taken some units off of the production line to do QC on them and they'd checked them out by plugging them into a PC with a virus on it which secreted itself on the MP3 player when it was connected.

[fred dunn]

Probably Made In China....QC Non-Existent

That acronym (PMIC) is becoming a four letter word.
Their QC is if it turns on then it's quality...Ship it.

Until contractors start demanding a higher level of quality control this situation is going to remain the norm instead of the exception.