Hackers have been known to place malicious software in thumb drives and bury it in innocuous-looking e-mails. But now it appears they’ve come up with a new way to infect your computer: e-cigarettes.
So while e-cigarettes could be better for your health than real smokes, charging them through your computer’s USB port can be a way to infect your computer with malware, experts say.
That’s apparently what one executive at a large corporation found out after he quit smoking and switched to e-cigarettes made in China, according to a recent post on the social media forum Reddit. The executive had a malware infection on his computer “from which the source could not be determined,” wrote an “IT guy” at the company. “After all traditional means of infection were covered, IT started looking into other possibilities.
“The made in China e-cigarette had malware hardcoded into the charger, and when plugged into a computer’s USB port the malware phoned home and infected the system.”
