Apple on Tuesday said that some video iPods that shipped after September 12, 2006 contained a known Windows virus. While the company didn’t disclose the exact amount of affected iPods, they said it is less than one percent of shipments.
“So far we have seen less than 25 reports — it may be far less than one percent,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod Marketing, told Macworld. “The iPod nano and Shuffle are not affected.”
According to Apple RavMonE.exe is a known Windows virus and up to date anti-virus software using the default settings should detect and remove it. Apple recommends attaching the video iPod to your computer and running the anti-virus software and then restore the iPod using iTunes 7.
Since RavMonE.exe propagates via mass storage devices, Apple also recommends that you scan any mass storage devices that you have recently attached to your Windows computers such as external hard drives, digital cameras with removable media and USB flash drives.
“It appears that this virus does not directly cause any data damage,” said Joswiak. However, it does affect the security of the computer, which is why we recommend you run anti-virus software.”
The virus does not affect Macs running Mac OS X — it will, however, affect any Windows environment you run on your Mac. Apple has posted a Web page detailing the virus alert.
“As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it,” said Joswiak.