Creative MP3 Players Shipped with Windows Virus

Multimedia company Creative acknowledged that 3,700 of the companys Zen Neeon MP3 players that shipped from a company factory in late July contain a Windows worm.

The 5GB Neeon digital audio players contain a copy of W32.Wullik.B, according to a statement posted on Creative Technology Ltd.s Japanese language Web site.

The worm file doesnt pose a serious threat of spreading, but could potentially infect Windows systems that are connected to the Neeon, according to anti-virus company F-Secure Corp.

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Wullik is a mass-mailing worm that first appeared in November, 2003, and makes copies of itself in random locations on machines it infects.

The worm is programmed to move to new locations when Windows Explorer browses the folder that it is in, and can be spread to floppy disks and shared network drives, according to Symantec Corp.

On the infected Neeons, the worm was found in a file called "Winfile" that is part of the devices file system, F-Secure said.

Click here to read about recent worm attacks on media and enterprise networks.

The worm is believed to have spread from machines used during the manufacturing process, Creative said in a statement.

The infected systems have been removed from the manufacturing plant and Creative recalled infected Neeons from stores, the company said.

Creative asked customers who bought the Zen Neeon 5GB players with serial numbers between M1PF1230528000001M and M1PF1230533001680Q to disinfect the systems using anti-virus software, or by manually deleting the worm filed from the players.

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