Virus hunters have discovered what's described as the first malware designed to infect iPod portable media players.

Podloso is a proof of concept program which poses no immediate threat beyond illustrating the point that VXers are always on the hunt for new platforms to infect.

The "malware" is a file which can be launched and run on an iPod, providing (and only if) Linux has been installed. Podloso cannot be launched automatically without user involvement, so it's more accurately described as a benign Trojan rather than a virus.

Podloso has no malicious payload and is unable to spread. The user has to save the virus to the iPod memory for the device to become infected, Kaspersky Labs reports.

Once launched, the virus scans the device's hard disk and infects all executable .elf format files. Any attempt to launch these files triggers a message which says "You are infected with Oslo the first iPodLinux Virus". ®

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