An IT employee at a large multinational, who wished to remain anonymous, reported on a blog an incident that occurred during his work, involving an electronic cigarette. An executive at the company who was working connected his electronic cigarette via USB to his computer to charge it. A virus was immediately observed on the company's network.
The IT department needed some time to understand how this happened since both the specific computer and the entire network had fully updated antivirus. Eventually, they found that the particular executive had connected his e‑cigarette to a USB port on his computer. The e‑cigarette was manufactured in China.
Malware inside the e‑cigarette
After a while, they discovered that the cigarette's charging section contained malware that was dangerous to computer security , which ran when it was connected to the computer via a USB port.
This news, although it has not been officially confirmed for these devices, is true in that USBs can have dangerous scripts that may run when they are connected to the appropriate port. We must always have an updated antivirus and, of course, directly check the devices we connect via USB.
