Olympus ships cameras infected with worm

Nearly 2,000 Stylus Tough 6010 cameras are thought to be affected

Olympus has confirmed that nearly 2,000 of its Stylus Tough 6010 digital cameras have shipped with a worm installed on the included microSD card.

Once the card is inserted into a Windows computer via a USB port the worm spreads if the autorun feature is turned on or if the application is accessed.

Olympus has apologised for the error and set up a web site for customers to check the serial number of their cameras against the malware infected list.

The incident is the latest in a string of similar problems. Samsung shipped a number of Wave smartphones earlier this month with a Trojan embedded in the microSD card, and analysts have warned that companies may face increasing legal liability if standards are not tightened.

"With such a long history of incidents like this, more companies need to wake up to the need for better quality control to ensure that they don't ship virus-infected gadgets," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"At the same time, consumers should ensure that autorun is disabled, and scan any device for malware before they use it on their computer."