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Aldi Laptop comes with Preinstalled Virus!

by AlanEvans | September 13, 2007 at 03:06 am | 1112 views | 5 comments

German news site Heise reports that several laptops bought at discount supermarket Aldi come with a virus preinstalled!

The virus (Stoned.Angelina) - a true dinosaur, being mainly active in the heady DOS years - infects the Master Boot Record and attempts to spread to removable media, at the same time attempting to evade detection. According to virus descriptions from Symantec and Bullguard (Bullguard produces the antivirus software that comes preinstalled on the Aldi laptops), the virus has no further damaging effects besides its attempts to replicate to other media.

The Bullguard antivirus software that comes preinstalled on these Aldi (Medion) laptops recognises the virus, but is not in a position to remove it, instead offering instructions to remove it using the recovery DVD.

Medion, the manufacturers of the machines, have yet to comment, but if your Danish language skills are up to it, there is this PDF document, that (apparently) confirms the problem, and offers the same recovery-DVD repair option.

In diversen Internet-Foren (etwa dem von Avira) tauchen Benutzerberichte auf, denen zufolge das vergangene Woche beim Lebensmittel-Discounter Aldi verkaufte Medion-Notebook MD96290 ab Werk mit dem Bootsektor-Virus Stoned.Angelina infiziert ist. Die auf dem Notebook vorinstallierte Antivirenlösung von Bullguard erkennt den Schädling zwar, kann ihn aber offenbar nicht entfernen.

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SthPacific

at 04:51 on September 13th, 2007

Ouch, I shop at Aldi too, always been a bit sus of those really cheap tech deals they have.

liamssoft

at 05:33 on September 13th, 2007

I once shopped at Aldi for tinned chicken curry, I was sick for two days and later read UK Food Hazard Warning Notices

SthPacific

at 07:47 on September 13th, 2007

LOL I tried some cheap coffeee from them once too, it said, Arabica on the packet but it tasted like dirt.

jordan

at 06:55 on September 13th, 2007

good stuff:

That should save the user some time- they won't need to bother getting a virus out in the wild. It's good to see that some companies still put customers' convenience first...