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Asus bombards Windows 11 with christmas.exe malware-like Christmas wreath banner (www.windowslatest.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Welp, seems ASUS motherboards also push this by default: https://www.techpowerup.com/248827/asus-z390-motherboards-automatically-push-software-into-your-windows-installation

During testing for our Intel Core i9-9900K review we found out that new ASUS Z390 motherboards automatically install software and drivers to your Windows 10 System, without the need for network access, and without any user knowledge or confirmation. This process happens in complete network-isolation (i.e. the machine has no Internet or LAN access).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

This is how cheats are installed on LAN competitions

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Holy shit. I got Logitech peripherals, and an ASUS motherboard. I'm glad I'm on Linux. I still have Windows installed, and booted into it around 2 weeks ago, after it having lied dormant for four months. I didn't notice anything being installed, but maybe I had to reboot first.

Quite possibly, my peripherals and motherboard are all too old to have this anti-feature. Do you know if there is a list of which of their hardware this is the case for?

Damnit, I always preferred Logitech mice. I guess I might have bought my last one.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What's Logitech have to do with it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What does it do with Linux?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The ASUS UEFI firmware exposes an ACPI table to Windows 10, called "WPBT" or "Windows Platform Binary Table". WPBT is used in the pre-built OEM industry, and is referred to as "the Vendor's Rootkit." Put simply, it is a script that makes Windows copy data from the BIOS to the System32 folder on the machine and execute it during Windows startup - every single time the system is booted.

So, sounds like a Windows-specific ~~vulnerability~~ feature.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Make a read only file/folder with the same name and the script should fail. But that is horseshit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Similarly (above), I can't confirm this either, on two different Asus boards, still in support/updates. I'm assuming this requires their software to be installed, which there's no point to, so I didn't bother... Maybe it's part of their armory crate system, which can (should) be disabled in the bios...