Raspberry Pi was offered money for installing malware on their computers

Raspberry Pi was offered money to infect millions through their mini computers

Liz Upton from the Raspberry Pi Foundation made a shocking revelation that someone had offered cash to pre-install malware on the insanely popular mini-computer, Raspberry Pi before they were shipped out.

The Foundation’s director of communications, Liz Upton revealed the photo content of an email from a “business officer” called Linda, who promised a “price per install” for a suspicious executable file. However, the name of the company represented by Linda was not disclosed.

“Amazing. This person seems to be very sincerely offering us money to install malware on your machines,” said Liz.

Certainly that it is not the real name as in the picture and unforeseen success of Raspberry Pi has brought them into the limelight. It wouldn’t be wrong to say Linda’s approach wasn’t exactly professional. However, the offer seems genuine, and it throws light on the dark world of paid-for malware distribution.

This situation once again raises the question regarding the necessity of hardware validation. The prospect that a persistent attacker installs malicious implants and software onto consumer devices is a serious threat.

Sometimes, there are people who are willing to pay to distribute malware, while sometimes the developer directly inserts unauthorized code in their software. However, in the majority of cases, the malware is served by a third-party with the intent to compromise end-customer’s devices.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has declined Linda’s offer, and described her company as “evildoers.” Well, the offer does not come as a surprise at all considering that an estimated $70 million the torrent piracy sites are raking in from serving malware to free media seekers.

Till now, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has sold over 5 million units of their affordable DIY computer and the number is still rising.

Kavita Iyer
Kavita Iyerhttps://www.techworm.net
An individual, optimist, homemaker, foodie, a die hard cricket fan and most importantly one who believes in Being Human!!!

5 COMMENTS

  1. From what i read she could just be asking to have a pre-installed exe that just creates a Desktop link to open a website. Seems not very different from promotional offers on certain laptops that use Trial versions of software.

    That’s not malware.

    • It smells like a malware… exe doesnt wornk on Linux based OSes and btw if they wanted users to logon to a website using a shortcut they would do it different

  2. Kudos to Liz Upton for revealing this communication to the world. Next she will receive the British equivalent of a NSL (U.S. National Security Letter) which prohibits revealing the existence of the letter upon pain of persecution/prosecution by the government. Other commenters who have taken the letter at face value misunderstand the nature of evil doers to tell half truths as one way of accomplishing their evil doing ways, whether it be spam, malware, viruses, backdoors, or advertising. I hope the vast majority of native English speakers would have seen through this letter, starting with the greeting. And, as has been mentioned, the complete unfamiliarity of the Raspberry Pi’s technical system makes this letter laughable, but none the less, a warning as the intent is highly suspicious.

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