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Asus bombards Windows 11 with christmas.exe malware-like Christmas wreath banner
(www.windowslatest.com)
it is a very subtile ad for linux
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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The manager who approved this need to be fired. Programs need to ask permission to the user before installing, especially when they're not device drivers.
This is literal malware and there's also a chance that it might be exploited (example: a mitm Attack exchanges the file that armory crate is downloading)
This kind of Easter egg is not funny at all, developers must avoid undocumented time bombs. I still remember that day 15 years ago when I turned on my Wii and it said that the system files were corrupted. After hours of reverting a full nand backup via bootmii (and losing 2 years of game saves) it turned out that it was a funny April's fool by crediar, which put a fake system corruption message when you run his program on April 1st. Problem is that his program was a loader for the system menu so it was unavoidable if you didn't know that.
Like me, there must be someone paranoid that saw that black bar on the screen, saw a weird Christmas.exe running on their system, and starting wiping or restoring old images to "clean" that.
the wreath has a memory leak
modern app design and its consequences
More like old app design. It's much harder (but of course fully doable) to have a memory leak in modern languages.
WDYM "malware like"? It is malware.
Another reason to not buy any Asus stuff.
When you turn on your PC and notice that there’s a huge Christmas banner on your desktop, do not panic – your device is not compromised.
Hah, well a vendor just pushed unapproved executable to the device and ran it without consent. Under any definition or other context it's definitely compromised.
This is why I boycott Logitech, they started pushing the Logitech Download Assistant through Windows Update as soon as you connect a Logitech mouse/keyboard.
It autoruns not only when it is first installed but on every startup.
It is rather annoying to try and uninstall it, I don't get why there has been so little backlash against this....
Microsoft permitting this is devaluing Windows Update, the driver (.inf) should be installed automatically, any executable file that WU wants to download and run on your computer should just bring up a small Windows notification saying something like this:
The device you just installed requests to download and run the following program from Windows Update:
Logitech Download Assistant
Will you approve or reject this request? Approve/Reject
It is just terrible that this is permitted
It's almost as if the PC doesn't belong to you anymore
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"do not panic – your device is not compromised."
meme(always has been)
if someone not you installing crap you dont want isn't compromised then i dont what is
There is nothing wrong with your device. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We control the horizontal. We control the vertical.
...We control the treble, and all your bass belongs to us too.
/incredibly ancient joke
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If it's unwanted, disruptive, and (allegedly) impacts performance, that's not "malware-like". It's malware.
It also automatically reinstalls itself through a BIOS feature. That's advanced level malware.
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It is a part of the ASUS Armoury Crate software that is pre-installed on some ASUS PCs.
Always flash new OS if you buy a computer.
That won’t get rid of it unless you also manually go into the BIOS and disable the install ASUS Armoury Crate setting as explained in the article.
If you don’t do this it will automatically reinstall even on a fresh install of Windows. Some of these bloatware programs will even install without an internet connection! This absolutely ludicrously stupid feature is called WPBT and is used by lots of manufacturers. Luckily it doesn’t work on Linux (at least for now…).
That's wild that it's a BIOS setting. Just an extra level of fuck you.
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That's in the bios, it's a pcie device that windows allows to inject root level code into your environement, you have to turn it off and hope nothing ever spoofs that pcie id because that's a permanent hardware rootkit into your pc like EFI
That's in the bios, it's a pcie device that windows allows to inject root level code into your environement
What. The. Fuck. Are they the only one to install their crap so deep?
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Who green lit this? I really hope that person gets fired immediately.
The lack of any visual link to ASUS isn't even the biggest problem for me; it's that ASUS rolls out a program that (presumably) puts itself in autostart by default and just pops up without prompt at all.
Edit: There's a fucking setting in the BIOS to auto-install ASUS' bullshit software? And it's enabled by default.... jesus fucking christ
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everyone submit a help desk ticket to Asus asking wtf is going on
Somebody should create a windows executable to be placed in the WPBT that silently install Linux on first windows boot....
I'd love to know if this was just some guy who went 'let's ship it to all our customers!' or if this was a C-level 300 hours of meetings type of thing which concluded that spreading christmas ~~malware~~ cheer was the right move.
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