Snippet: No, Spotify, You Shouldn’t Have Sent Mysterious USB Drives to Journalists ☇

Zack Whittaker for TechCrunch:

Last week, Spotify sent a number of USB drives to reporters with a note: “Play me.” […]

But anyone with basic security training under their hat — which here at TechCrunch we have — will know to never plug in a USB drive without taking some precautions first.

Concerned but undeterred, we safely examined the contents of the Spotify drive using a disposable version of Ubuntu Linux (using a live CD) on a spare computer. It was benign and contained a single audio file. “This is Alex Goldman, and you’ve just been hacked,” the file played.

Dumb.