"If you can see this image, we've taken over your computer."

Principle 14 of The Perfect Virus (see it here) is STEALTH.  Almost three years ago, I posited that "hiding in plain sight" by embedding virus elements in images, kind of a perverse steganography, was an excellent stealth mechanism. The July 18th Network World story (see it here) indicates that a variant of this has actually been employed: attackers embedding back doors into image files. Actually, they're using file header information as a back door key mat. A "baby step"using the What About Bob line, but a good one nevertheless.