CAMERA VIRUS

Hi,

Do you know if there is any possibility that the digital camera gets

a virus from the computer that it connects to when downloading the

photos to the pc?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

I highly doubt it. Most viruses are designed to infect Windows or Macs or whatever operating systems.

I'd say you could probably put a infected .exe file on your CF card stick it in the camera and nothing would be different.

Thats just a guess though so don't go try it!

With the current viruses and cameras, no none. Now if at some point we got a talented hacker who hated Canon, or cameras running on some new version of Windows CE it could be another story. Now though, your safe.

YOUR digital camera will NEVER get a virus. Period.

Extremely unlikely... the only way to corrupt the camera's operating system is when loading a new version of firmware, which requires you to press buttons as well as having a file of the right format on your CF card before it would be accepted. You could regard the Digital Rebel "FEC hack" as a virus, but those who use it find the capability useful, for all that it seems to leave the red eye indicator permanently on. That hacked version of firmware can be restored to a proper Canon version easily enough.

Actually, "Never" is a strong word, but it is very, very unlikely that your camera will get a virus.

 

It is almost impossible for a virus to transfer from the computer to the camera via the cable connection, since there are no executable files that go to the camera from the computer.

 

The camera could not be "infected" by a virus from the computer, even if the computer has a virus, since the processor is different.

 

But, with some knowledge of the Camera's processor a virus type program could be written that disables the camera or just some of its functions. It probably could not be transfered via the cable, but could easily be transfered via the flash card.

 

Getting a virus from the computer to to the flash card to the camera would be a very complicated process, and would have to be "targeted" somehow.

 

The reason computer viruses propagate so quickly is because there are millions of computers all running the same operating system connected together through the net. No matter who makes the computer it is running windows. Digital cameras even of the same brand use different operating systems, so it would be much tougher to propogate.

Good god! Worry about other things please...Like sneezing on the lense as a result of a real virus!

Thank you to all, I feel a little more secure now. I was really concerned about getting my camera infected with viruses from computers.

 

Thanks again for your help!!!

It's extremely unlikely, because the same viruses that affect computers are highly unlikely to affect cameras.

 

It's not technically impossible that a computer virus could be written in a way that damages a camera, but that is not going to keep me awake at night.

If a virus looked for removable media in your drive and copied a foo.fir or whatever the firmware boot file is called to it, the next time you put it in your camera, it would boot into the firmware loader. But you'd still get a prompt to burn the new firmware, but some people who never saw it before might go ahead and do it. Look at all the idiots who propagate these Microsoft Outlook worms, that require only people to click on them.

 

As one sysadmin said, "The users here would click on a landmine to see what it did."

By definition, a virus (in digital terminology) is something that can make copies of itself by infecting other "hotsts" to include within them a [possibly modified] copy of itself. The main thing about a virus is it's ability to self-propogate.

 

Taking that further, the only way one could have a "camera virus" is by having a "virus" that can propogate from CAMERA TO CAMERA. The vectors (mechanisms / paths of infection) maybe via cable or wireless. All this seems rather unlikely at this point of time.

 

A trojan, by definition is "something which claims to do one thing, but do something else [usually harmfull]". In this context, if you had a file which claimed to say, just for example, fix the focusing issue with 10D cameras, and instead went and zapped your flash memory contents (firmware), then that would be a trojan.

Windows gets constant viruses because it's despised the world over.No one hates canon enough to do that-not even nikon

If you're concerned about getting a virus, or have had experiences with them

on your computer in the past, may I suggest getting a Macintosh? I can't help

but chuckle a bit when every week my windows-user friends get a new virus

and have to reinstall their system. Mac OS X doesn't *ever* crash . . . on the

other hand, if it's only your camera you'd like to keep safe, worry not, there

aren't any camera viruses (as yet). Just not worth the effort of a virus author to

do -- hard to transmit/distribute, not catostrophic, won't destroy irreplaceable

data: very little bang-for-the-buck so to speak.

It is possible, but very unlikely. It would basically take a disgruntled Canon/Nikon/etc. software engineer, or a very motivated and well equipped attack team with the equipment to reverse engineer the embedded processor/memory system, to write such a thing. It could be done, but it would be expensive (either in terms of career suicide or in terms of assembling engineers capable of reverse engineering the camera).

 

You are much more likely to come across a firmware update that has not received adequate testing, and locks up your camera during a routine update.

I did a shoot with my 1D a couple weeks ago and when trying to import the batch of files from the CF card my computer froze up and had to be rebooted. I tried importing the files in small batches and was able to pinpoint one file that was causing the problem. Once I deleted that image from the CF card the rest of them opened fine. Doesn't qualify as a virus but it does point out how dangerous digital is compared to film in terms of the potential for losing an entire shoot due to a little glitch somewhere. With film you might lose a whole roll but that's only 36 exposures. I'm going to dig out some 64 and 128MB CF cards and use them from now on. No more putting all eggs in one basket.

That is true, with digital you never know...

<< I can't help but chuckle a bit when every week my windows-user friends get a new virus and have to reinstall their system.>>

 

I think that may be as much a problem with your friends lack of knowledge. I've been using networked DOS/windows PCs for over 10 years and never had to reinstall becuase of a virus. Additionally, Macs are not more virus proof, its just that virus writers don't bother as Macs are not popular enough.

 

OK, I'm off to write a virus to give that Nikon with the wireless connection a focus problem. :)

<i>Additionally, Macs are not more virus proof, its just that virus writers don't bother as Macs are not popular enough.</i><BR>

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I agree, but also Windoze has more security holes due (indirectly, in its design) to its core foundation of late 70's technology (QDOS), but that's another topic, and I'm not really pro one or the other.<BR>

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If somebody had enough time (there are many out there), it is possible; the Canon firmware upgrades are executables themselves which when put on the CompactFlash card and read from the camera at "boot time" (i.e. when you flip the switch to "on") it fires up. So a camera-specific virus is a possibility; the chances of cross-infection are remote, though, for there are so many hoops...but one should <i>never</i> say "never".<BR>

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Does it exist? Not that anybody's aware of. Should we not discuss this topic? We don't want to give anybody any ego-inflating ideas.

"Mac OS X doesn't *ever* crash "

 

I know a number of people who would give a hollow laugh at that assertion. I can think of half a dozen off-hand who have witnessed all three versions of OS-X turn up its toes at one time or another. Apple evangelists may like to spread the myth of perfection but a lot of us know differently. Both my wife and I are Apple users, by the way.

It's almost a certainity that your camera wil get a virus, becuase vendors such as symantec,

McAfee, Sophos etc, do not make money out of selling products to protect EOS Camreas,

only PCs and Macs. On that basis there is little inentive for "talented hackers" to write

viruses for them. Now if an Antivirus product comes out for a camera, you can be certain

the virus will follow :-)

While there aren't any viruses for digital cameras, the key word is "yet". Those dismissing

the suggestion clearly aren't familiar with the common techniques used to break into

computer systems, and don't realize that their cameras run full-fledged operating systems

these days.

 

The 10D, 300D and some of the S-series all run a form of embedded DOS, and people

have successfully modified the menu to include other programs; it's rather trivial, it seems.

Since the processor is for the most part x86 compatible, viruses would not be outside the

realm of possibility and would be rather easy to write given such a simple, easy to

understand platform with readily accessible development tools.

 

It is most certainly possible that someone will analyze the firmware for a camera, discover

the programmers were lazy and don't validate data coming from the host system via USB,

or don't buffer data properly...and develop an exploit(buffer overflow exploits can confuse

the operating system into executing data as instructions). Infecting Windows systems is

trivial these days, and said virus could contain another virus aimed at damaging or

infecting the camera.

 

Damaging it wouldn't be hard- you need only wipe the firmware and

the camera becomes a doorstop and needs to get sent in for service- it's not a simple as

with a computer, where you can drop a CD in the drive and reinstall everything. Further,

limits on the servos for focus, aperture and zoom may rely on limit-switches or encoders a

malicious program would ignore; manufacturers love to a)make assumptions and b)cut

corners in the name of cost. While viruses don't actually physically damage their host

systems, a camera could be a whole other ball game.

 

You would think such an exploit would only be effective on specific models, but camera

makers outsource their operating system work and use camera operating systems

developed by only a handful of companies, and often numerous cameras by the same

manufacturer have nearly identical operating systems.

 

So, yes- it is most certainly theoretically possible. It all depends on how much foresight

the designers of the cameras have had...

My guess is that there are not enough digital camera users as yet compared with the PC users; but eventually the digital camera viruses will pop up as the number of digital camera users increases exponentially in the next few years, and when it is profitable for companies like Network Associates Inc. to market the digital camera anti-virus softwares.

 

It's not difficult to write a virus/worm that can alter or destroy the data in the CF/SD cards IMHO, and the virus/worm can be transmitted from your PC to the CF/SD cards while u are downloading the images to the PC or formatting the CF/SD cards with your PC, and the virus/worm might also alter/destroy your digital camera firmware during updating. u can get infected by that virus/worm on your PC just as u would get a normal PC virus/worm.

 

This is indeed a very profitable market for digital camera anti-virus softwares as the number of digital camera users increases in the new few years, and let us just hope that this won't happen any sooner; but it will happen eventually.

I really doubt it will happen unless a lot more non-camera functionality is added to the digicams. For now, no worries. If you have a camera in your cell phone, now that I would worry about.