Malware Found in Chinese E-Cigarettes' Charger; Company Exec Infected

It hasn`t yet been proven that e-cigarettes can cause cancer, but they just might be able to give you malware.

A recent report on Reddit posted by one IT employee suggested that e-cigarettes made in China had malware hard coded in their chargers.

“One particular executive had a malware infection on his computer from which the source could not be determined,” the Reddit post said. “After all traditional means of infection were covered, IT started looking into other possibilities.”

After ruling out of attack vectors the IT team asked the executive about recent changes in lifestyle. This is how they found out he recently switched to e-cigarettes.

“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.”

In this circumstance, ‘vapers’ are advised to never plug their USB e-cigarette chargers in their computers and use conventional plug chargers with a USB socket. They can also disable the data pins from the USB to stay safe and prevent any data exchange.

This is a good reminder to be careful when plugging anything into our computers.