The low risk worms, Fakerecy and SillyFDC, were seen in a batch of 256MB and 1GB USB keys that was sent with the HP servers. It is undetermined how many infected keys, used for installing optional floppy-disc drives to servers, were spread. An infected system in the manufacturing plant is probably reason of the incident.

The virus spread is not believed to be an great threat, due in part to the low number of estimated users still utilizing floppy disk drives for data storage and that most hackers don't find the virus valuable.

There has been other reports of digital photo frames, other hardware devices, and even software media coming out of the factory with malware. Anti-virus software, if up to date, should discover both of the computer viruses involved in the HP Proliant USB attack as long the Anti-Virus protection was installed after the floppy device was added to the machine. Disabling autorun thwarts both Fakerecy and SillyFDC and may be the advisable alternative.

Hewlett-Packard's advisory, via local security clearing house AUSCert, can be found here: http://www.auscert.org.au/render.html'it=9077. The SANS Institutes's Internet Storm Centre has advice on avoiding USB malware-related danger here: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4247.

Consumer hardware devices going out of the factory with malicious software is getting more common these days, increasing the motivation for strong security. For a limited time, you can receive free computer virus protection.