Over the Christmas period, German coffee roaster turned retailer Tchibo has been selling a virus-laden 35mm negative scanner in its stores and online shop. The device, which is produced by electronics accessory manufacturer Hama, was sold for €60 (approximately £48). In an email to customers who purchased the scanner on their online store and an announcement (German language link) on their web site, the company confirmed the problem.

Talking to The H's associates at heise Security, Hama corroborated Tchibo's report of the incident. The affected device was exclusively sold through Tchibo and was infected with the Win32/Conficker.B virus which rose to notoriety four years ago when it caused infections around the globe. Nowadays, any current anti-virus scanner should be able to detect this strain of malware with ease.

On the affected devices, Conficker is apparently present in the DCIM.exe and autorun.inf files. The autorun file itself cannot cause much trouble these days, as Microsoft modified the behaviour of Windows in this regard as a reaction to the original Conficker outbreak. However, if the .exe file is executed, the malware can still be spread on unprotected systems. Tchibo is offering affected customers refunds for the devices but also says that they can be safely used after the virus has been removed with a modern anti-virus application.