Wow.

That’s rather disturbing actually. It’s also a staunch reminder that you shouldn’t use automatic update features like GFE provides, for your hardware.

gfe gets updates from nvidia not asus

It's the same principle. nVidia could in theory suffer from the same issue as ASUS.

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

It's the same principle. nVidia could in theory suffer from the same issue as ASUS.

But youd be just as vulnerable if you downloaded the driver manually from Nvidia right?

If the driver package in itself would be manipulated, yes.
In the current case it wasn't the ASUS software itself that was infected. They abused the updater to download and install a malware and even signed it with the certificate from ASUS.

my mobo stopped getting updates 6 months ago and I never use software updaters anyway. even less likely to now lol.

Still have to find out who was after the attack, and with what purpose. Hopefully it's just someone trying to be smart. Not that you're really smart to do that.
They could get into trouble, if they bump into a literal hacker. Ha, ha.

So malicious hardware ASUS makes now runs malicious software? Lol the things are trying to kill themselves I guess.

Originally posted by Ad Hominem:

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

It's the same principle. nVidia could in theory suffer from the same issue as ASUS.

But youd be just as vulnerable if you downloaded the driver manually from Nvidia right?

Nope, manual downloading wasn’t affected. Even then, the difference is that one has the chance to not run the infected installer, whereas automated updates don’t allow that.

Originally posted by Snow:

So malicious hardware ASUS makes now runs malicious software? Lol the things are trying to kill themselves I guess.

I have an ASUS Strix GTX970 that happens to function perfectly for my game library. GPU core clock is at 1403MHz.

Quick update for ASUS users using the automatic driver downloader for your ASUS devices, Kaspersky Labs has provided a tool to check for the malware on your system. It’s strongly recommended that you run that to make sure your devices are not infected.



Source:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/asus-computer-hacking.html?m=1


More details are arising about ShadowHammer. It seems to be a variant of the same ShadowPad malware that was included in the CCleaner Compromise of June 2017, and the attacks are likely going to act like the NotPetya outbreak in May 2017.

Source:
https://www.wired.com/story/asus-software-update-hack/

That "test" simply checks the MAC address and compares it with a database of MACs known to be infected. It does not look for and detect the malware itself.

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

That "test" simply checks the MAC address and compares it with a database of MACs known to be infected. It does not look for and detect the malware itself.

That’s probably coming along later though. Judging by its distribution method, it really shluldn’t be too long as it seems to be a variety of ShadowPad malware.



Still, at least there’s a list of individually affected devices. This whole thing shifts my priorities at work because a lot of the customers I deal with at the shop tend to have ASUS laptops. I have to keep a closer watch on the customers that use ASUS devices.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1694762491

Perhaps there is some joined venture between that PC brand company, it's hackers, and the anti-virus brand company?
I've noticed the media people keep talking about them in the same sentence.
And getting the people fearful is always a good method to sell your things.

*puts on conspiracy hat*