If you’ve turned to E-cigarettes to reduce the damage of your smoking habit or help you quit, you may want to avoid Chinese brands unless you’re prepared to turn your computer into a smoking, sputtering paperweight as a sacrifice to your improved health.
That’s because there seems to be mounting evidence that some Chinese E-cigarettes can literally infect your computer with viruses and malware.
Recently, a redditor posted to an E-cigarette forum on the famous “Front Page of the Internet” with a story about his boss’ work computer coming down with a mysterious virus. When tech support discovered that nothing malicious had been downloaded from the Internet, further investigation apparently revealed that the boss had been plugging the USB cable to power his E-cigarette directly into his computer.
This story prompted the Guardian, which either has a team dedicated to combing reddit for story ideas or just has a bored intern that struck gold, to investigate further, asking a tech security consultant about the authenticity of the story. The consultant said it was plausible, pointing to previous incidents involving USBs hardcoded with malware in things like digital picture frames.
The investigation seems to confirm that all evidence points to at least some Chinese E-cigarette brands potentiality transferring harmful programs to your computer, and we’re sure it’s only a matter of time before nefarious Chinese hackers manage to rig the cigarettes to infect your very lungs with the computer virus, compelling you to just send them all your money in the mail.
Moral of the story: If your E-cigarettes are from China, you might consider investing in having a wall outlet converted to accept USB. Or, you know, give up smoking altogether.
Source: Gigazine
Photos: Wikimedia Commons (Michael Dorausch), Wikipedia