There may be a new type of Trojan Horse attack to worry about

From Computer World

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to figure out who sent five Hewlett-Packard laptop computers to West Virginia Governor Joe Mahchin a few weeks ago, with state officials worried that they may contain malicious software.

Sources familiar with the investigation say other states have been targeted too, with HP laptops mysteriously ordered for officials in 10 states. Four of the orders were delivered, while the remaining six were intercepted, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

This is a great way to penetrate a large organisation. Many people would just take the attitude that someone messed up and forgot to inform them. After all we all know how useless 'they' are, don't we?

With users now more reluctant to install suspicious software or open attachments on their networks, scammers appear to be looking for new ways to get inside the firewall. On Tuesday, the National Credit Union Administration warned that an unnamed credit union had received two fake CDs designed to look like training materials. Installing the CDs "could result in a possible security breach to your computer system," the administration warned.

Scammers have also tried to put malware on USB devices and then left them outside company offices, hoping someone will plug them into a computer and inadvertently install malicious software on the network. Many Windows systems are configured to automatically run software included on CDs and USB devices using a Windows feature called AutoRun.

As you can see, it does not have to be expensive laptops. A cheap memory stick will entice many people too. Do yourself a favour right now - turn off AutoRun on your removable media devices like USB and CD.