Facts on the virus that shipped with some Maxtor drives

Limited number of drives infected, free virus software available

As you may have heard, some of our Maxtor Personal Storage PS3200 drives were infected with a virus before they shipped. Here are some facts:

• A small number drives were infected (I don’t know the number) by a Chinese sub-contractor.
•  The Taiwan investigative bureau’s claim that the virus sent all user data to Chines authorities was false, and Seagate has asked them to correct that misinformation.
• All the drives still in the factory and inventory have been reworked and are free of the virus.
• We’re providing a free 60-day version of Kaspersky Lab 7.0 to those who bought a drive that may have been infected.
• The virus is the Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah, a molar virus that searches for passwords to online games and gaming websites and sends them to a server located in China. It also deletes other molar viruses and can disable virus detection software.
• It affects the following games and gaming sites (all Chinese except World of Warcraft):

WSGame, 91.com, QQ, Woool, rxjh.17game.com, TianLongBaBu, AskTao, Perfect World (Wanmei Shijie), World of Warcraft

• The drives were infected accidentally; it was not malicious.
• The manufacturing process has been changed so that every drive is scanned for viruses before being shipped.
• Maxtor products are manufactured by Seagate, which bought Maxtor about a year and a half ago.

This was an unfortunate, accidental event.  I’m relieved at least that it was limited in scope, and that we at Seagate seem to be learning from it.