For the entire article: Malware's new infection route: photo frames by Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer

Good grief.

I'm surprised that the article did not suggest disabling autorun/autoplay and scanning the devices after they are plugged in before allowing them to run.

Orange Blossom

Keeping Autorun enabled on USB and other removable drives has become a significant security risk due to the increasing number of malware variants that can infect them and transfer the infection to your computer. Read Danger USB! Worm targets removable memory sticks.

I recommend disabling the Autorun feature on USB and removable drives (especially an external drive used for backup) as a method of prevention.

The easiest way to disable Autorun on a specific drive is to download and use Tweak UI PowerToy.

• After installation, launch Tweak UI, double-click on My Computer in the tree menu on the left, then click on AutoPlay > Drives. This will allow you to change the system settings for AutoPlay/autorun.
• Uncheck the drives you want to disable AutoPlay on and click on Apply.
• Next, click on the Types in the left tree. This allows you to control whether Autoplay is enabled for CD and DVD drives and removable drives. You may need to restart Tweak UI if it closes after step 2.
• Uncheck the box to disable Autoplay for a particular type of drive.
• Click Apply.

See "Disable Autorun/AutoPlay" for instructions with screenshots.
When Autorun is disabled, double-clicking a drive which has autorun.inf in its root directory may still activate Autorun so be careful.

Always scan USB Flash Drives after they have been used in other computer systems, even your own. An easy way to do this is to download "ClamWin Portable", install it on your USB Flash Drive, update its definition files and perform a scan.

Another prevention measure you can use is to download Symantec's NoScript utility. Scroll down to the section "How to disable (or re-enable) the Windows Scripting Host" to find the link and follow the instructions. Noscript will disable the Windows Scripting Host and prevent VBScripts from running on your machine until you run the utility again.

geez... you can't even by some simple digital photo frames anymore without suffering malware. That's ridiculous... Next thing you know, my refrigerator will get a virus.. my watch... my microwave... I guess it is just one of the things we will have to suffer as computers and computerized products take over more of the world.