ASUS Christmas Campaign Sparks Malware Panic Among Windows Users 59
ASUS computer owners have been reporting widespread alarm after a Christmas-themed banner suddenly appeared on their Windows 11 screens, accompanied by a suspicious "Christmas.exe" process in Task Manager.
The promotional campaign, first reported by WindowsLatest, was delivered through ASUS' pre-installed Armoury Crate software. It displays a large wreath banner that covers one-third of users' screens. The unbranded holiday display, which can interrupt gaming sessions and occasionally crashes applications, has triggered security concerns among users who initially mistook it for malware.
The promotional campaign, first reported by WindowsLatest, was delivered through ASUS' pre-installed Armoury Crate software. It displays a large wreath banner that covers one-third of users' screens. The unbranded holiday display, which can interrupt gaming sessions and occasionally crashes applications, has triggered security concerns among users who initially mistook it for malware.
Mistook it for malware? (Score:5, Insightful)
No mistaking. In fact it *is* malware and Asus deserves all the flack they get over this stunt. Just because it doesn't maliciously destroy data or hardware doesn't mean it's not malware.
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Only if you do it in the street.
Re:Mistook it for malware? (Score:5, Informative)
Vice versa for laying down a prayer mat and facing Mecca in Alabama
There are 31 mosques in Alabama.
That's 31 more than the number of churches in Saudi Arabia.
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That's 31 more than the number of churches in Saudi Arabia.
Says the person who has never been to Saudi Arabia. I have been and there is most certainly at least one official church in Saudi Arabia because I have seen it with my own eyes.
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If someone did that in Alabama or Mississippi, people likely will just walk around, maybe even make a snide comment. Even in those places, someone messing with a Muslim would go to prison for a hate crime... and those states have penal systems that are not places where one wants to be thrown into.
It isn't like the Middle East where people would be picking up rocks and aiming them at your head, as soon as they find you doing some Christian-like activity.
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Repent so your soul can be saved! God is waiting for you and will gladly accept you. Letting your soul starve to death is going to cause you all kinds of problems, physical, psychological, health, etc.
Beside, being atheist is ultimately being selfish and narcissist showing that you think you are so smart and that you know and understand everything.
IMHO, you don't need to follow any specific preacher or practice that much but the important thing is to still believe and apply the principle taught by almost all religions. Otherwise, you're pretty much done.
I kept reading this, waiting for the joke. Turns out the joke was on me; you appear to have been sincerely proselytizing a random stranger in a tech forum on the internet. Huh
Oh, wait -- I just re-read it, and I found the joke:
Beside, (sic) being atheist is ultimately being selfish and narcissist showing that you think you are so smart and that you know and understand everything.
That was it, right? The completely backwards characterization of atheists -- who pretty much universally follow a scientific bent and way of thought, and therefore would adhere to the scientific method's fundamental precept that you can never say you know anything absolutely -- using
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Wow.
Athiest: "I don't need a god to explain what I don't understand."
Religious kook: "You think you know everything!"
This is some totally crazy batshit broken thinking; there is absolutely no logical connection between those. I really do hope he was joking.
This touches on what I was contemplating recently about how it seems everything is going to (figuratively) "hell in a hand basket". The idea that I was formulating was that there are people who simply cannot handle the fact that we can't "know" or "und
Re:Mistook it for malware? (Score:4, Interesting)
100% this. Who in their right mind thinks, "Let's stick some random unsolicited code on computers that interrupts user sessions without user permission"?
That person should be fired, then whipped, then left out in a hanging cage until the smell offends somebody.
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Re:Mistook it for malware? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who in their right mind thinks, "Let's stick some random unsolicited code on computers that interrupts user sessions without user permission"?
Computer vendors? Everyone who can manage it?
We were all taught the classical economic rationale for the free market, which is that vendors compete to satisfy customers who, armed with perfect and complete information are free to go elsewhere. But when you work in business, and pay attention, you see that much of what you do is to try to undermine this model. You make your products hard to compare on a price and feature basis to other vendors' offerings. You try to lock customers in, or at least give yourself an inside track. You slip things into the deal you hope the customer won't notice until it becomes a major bother to get rid of. You intrude into your customers' privacy while being opaque as possible about your own activities.
Anti-competitive behavior is so commonplace we take it for granted. In fact we wouldn't even use the word competitive to describe a vendor who is locked in a bitter price battle with rivals. A vendor who has successfully walled of piece of the market in a way that is secure from rivals' incursion we would praise as "competitive". In an ironic way, it's Orwellian.
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Holy hell. Yes, absolutely malware ... sanctioned by ASUS and Microsoft to boot! Windows is a hot mess that's only going to get worse. I left that train years ago.
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Holy hell. Yes, absolutely malware ... sanctioned by ASUS and Microsoft to boot! Windows is a hot mess that's only going to get worse. I left that train years ago.
And all of the passengers are looking out the windows at you yelling at random walls, relieved that the crazy man is gone. Nowhere in the article does Microsoft get mentioned as being involved in any way. Further, this isn't even a question of security; you're trusting that say... Firefox on Linux doesn't randomly obtain and execute some unexpected payload. It could, making this not an OS issue at all. It's a trusted vendor (Asus) back-loading something unwanted.
Focus, Daniel-san.
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you turn off this particular malware from within the bios. Windows, Microsoft, and the larger problem associated with your BIOS loading bundled software into your OS come in there as well:
"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."
windows and shitty vendors work together hand in hand to make this stupidity possible.
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You need to brush up on your facts: wax-on / wax-off
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You need to brush up on your facts: wax-on / wax-off
So brush us. You've got the time to spew random accusations but don't have the time to cite anything supporting your claims. Consider this your invitation to actually include content with your comments. You are the one asserting Microsoft is "sanctioning" this and that Windows being a "hot mess" is somehow related to this topic. Back up your claims or be dismissed as a crank.
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Mod parent up, though I think we need more Funny in general and apparently Funny doesn't count as up.
More personal anecdotes? Naw, I'll just summarize that I've had personal experiences with two ASUS devices and they did not go well. I think my wife may have been satisfied with an old ASUS, but that was a long time ago and I might be confused about the maker... (I only remember it vaguely as a failure when I tried to put Linux on it after XP expired. Some kind of BIOS lobotomy?)
CHRISMA EXEC (Score:5, Informative)
We've see this movie [wikipedia.org] before.
At least those of us old enough to remember the Reagan administration have.
Your not Microsoft (Score:1)
Re:Your not Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
Not really. They do not get called out, but that is only because nobody sane has a good opinion of Microsoft. And every time they do crap like that, users will migrate away even faster when they find a viable alternative. Yes, some Microsoft users clearly have Stockholm Syndrome. But I would be surprised if that is a majority.
Incidentally, Microsoft has gotten very stagnant, with Win11 delivering nothing but making things worse, Office only getting worse for years now and no actual problem or annoyances getting fixed. They are on borrowed time.
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Then you have Linux which just doesn't have a good experience across the board and the only decent versions seem to just disappear, probably because they were free and weren't making money.
That is not really true, now is it? The only reasons I have Windows on my teaching laptop is that Linux crashes beamers too often and that teams is tricky on Linux when you need audio. But I may try via browser again next year. The other use I have for Windows is as a game-launcher. And that is it. That is not even remotely "across the board".
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My question is, where would users migrate to? You have the Mac ecosystem, but that isn't really that affordable for many users.
On the home user level, Linux has come leaps and bounds, but there are some game companies (Daybreak, the people who make EverQuest) that have a policy that virtualization of emulation is an insta-ban. Other games may or may not work well on Linux, especially if DRM is thrown at them. Stuff like having a cloud drive isn't as easy as Windows or macOS where OneDrive or iCloud is th
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And every time they do crap like that, users will migrate away even faster when they find a viable alternative.
*Checks market share* - Nope I don't think you understand people at all.
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You are just being dumb again. There currently is no viable alternative for many scenarios. But that is not guaranteed to last.
It was ASUS? (Score:1)
Obviously, some Asus people are abysmally stupid (Score:2)
What did they thing would happen? This is a blatant, almost violent intrusion and misuse of the computers in question without permission.
Re: Obviously, some Asus people are abysmally stup (Score:2)
Who isn't doing this ?
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Thank you for a succinct description of commercial software today.
Yep, sad but true. To many "Business Assholes" (as we called them during my CS studies) make for rapid enshittification.
This is why I don't buy Asus monitors (Score:2)
Asus monitors are probably the most funky shitfest of monitors. Who in their right mind has the video and power connections at a right angle to the board? Every time we do a refresh I make sure all the program areas give up their Asus monitors. They are just horribly designed and this malware issue is icing on the cake.
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Can you explain the exact problem in question? I have two asus monitors sitting on my desk, and the angle on the inputs is the same as pretty much every other monitor on the market.
I mean, it's Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't all Windows users used to unsolicited banners, tooltips and other advert stuff constantly getting in their way? I don't see the problem.
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No.
Only the clueless ones that buy cheap shit that's just crammed full of shovelware from the manufacturer to "cut costs".
Anyone who has EVER installed windows from an actual windows install media instead of the OEM "restore disks" knows you get an absolute bare bones install.
SO bare bones in fact that in the WinXP and prior days you likely didn't even have drivers for many installed hardware components unless you had a separate "driver install CD".
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To be fair, this isn't true any more with win11. It now installs a lot of bloatware and bloatware "links" that are actually installers that get pushed into start menu depending on your location.
This is why the main way to get rid of this shit is to install with "english world" locale rather than any country. As (at least last time I checked it) bloatware is region specific.
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not sure where this common theme comes from... not once have i had this with a clean install of windows.
Mind you, i never install home/edu... strictly pro/enterprise versions.... but even on the home versions for friends and family, i never get banners or advert crap.... is it because i remove the search/news and weather stuff? and enable the no notifications options so apps don't annoy me.
I'm genuinely curious... the last time i had banners and crap was when i installed Xp for fun while online and it got i
Re:I mean, it's Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
It's there. On my Win 11 Pro with an enterprise license start menu, I currently have an Xbox Games Center app that I can't remove, a link to download an AI photo editor that I have no intention of installing, and even the fucking solitaire app that comes with it plays ads between games now.
On the bottom left corner of my screen is a news widget, that if I accidentally hover over it for half a second opens up and takes over 1/3 of my screen. In that are a bunch of links to online articles, none of which will open up in my default browser, and links to ads for games that it's encouraging me to install.
In my notification tray, just under my email summaries and above my calendar I have a link encouraging me to go to the Microsoft Store and install some games.
That's on a pro version of windows, installed with an enterprise license. The home version is even worse than that.
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for the xbox games and other stuff that runs.. i usually clean up what i have running at startup... and kill all the crap i can't uninstall/don't use for my day to day/work... I guess these little steps come naturally to me and i don't even notice it when i configure the system post install.
I'd go nuts if i had to deal with these nuisances... and knowing most people don't know/think to do it... they shouldn't need to... all of this should be opt in.. not default.
Thanks SoCalChris...
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You can get rid of most of it being installed next time you do a full reinstall by selecting "English - world" as your locale rather than "English - your country".
Bloatware appears to be region specific, so by not choosing a region, you don't get bloatware.
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I currently have an Xbox Games Center app that I can't remove
You fucked up your Windows install. It's possible to uninstall the Xbox shit even on Windows 11 Home edition, to say nothing of Pro / Enterprise where you can disable it using group policy.
On the bottom left corner of my screen is a news widget
Along with everything else you listed except for one single point, everything is removable on Windows 11 Home, and it honours that setting through major release updates. Most of those disappear with just a single setting "Suggestions in Start" an easily found setting that isn't hidden at all.
The only thing you list which
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not sure where this common theme comes from... not once have i had this with a clean install of windows.
Funny, I hear this exact same sentence from Linux fanatics every time I give Linux another try and it drives me crazy.
Asus armory crate is malware (Score:4, Interesting)
Literally topic. It's built in malware that can and does have install access on the machine with no knowledge or interaction from the user.
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It *is* useful for keeping drivers up to date on Asus hardware. But, yeah, I wish I didn't have to install the kitchen sink ad-delivery vehicle that is Armoury Crate...
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It is not. Windows update does that just fine. So does Asus' website.
Re: Asus armory crate is malware (Score:2)
Doesn't it need to be downloaded first? (rather than being built-in) But yes, it's the true malware, a backdoor and a trojan downloader, and this Xmas crap is just secondary.
Install armory crate and be welcome in the Asus' botnet.
Re: Asus armory crate is malware (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a rootkit sitting on the motherboard. It will inject itself automatically into a new windows 11 install unless you specifically disable it in UEFI settings (at least for version I've tried) before installing. Most people are unaware of its existence, so it just gets auto-installed, and then is a complete bitch to remove.
As a result, as far as I know it cannot be removed fully through official channels. Asus does have a tool to supposedly "remove it from OS entirely", and it never worked properly for me. There's a third party tool that I've heard good things about that supposedly removes it fully:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/... [reddit.com]
I've never tried it, but it might work since there aren't really any other options.
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It actually got an award for being so terrible [youtu.be] 2 years ago... but it still only came in at 3rd worst place, so I guess that's why they've dropped in this crap - all extra 478MB of "festive effects", that is... D:
Clueless (Score:2)
Fucking marketing drones!
Isn't it ironic... (Score:1)
I hadn't noticed Re:Isn't it ironic... (Score:2)
[insert pop-up ad for CowboyNealPopupBlocker here]
Prodigy... (Score:2)
Ugh. I remember Prodigy service softare showed a banner ad with PC speaker music. Users freaked out and thought it was a virus!