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Asus bombards Windows 11 with christmas.exe malware-like Christmas wreath banner
(www.windowslatest.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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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
Most computers firmware can store a Windows executable. Microsoft pushed for an addition to the ACPI tables called WPBT. That stores a Windows exectuable in the firmware. It is of course totally used for the intended purpose...
I'm always dismayed but not surprised by how many people don't know about Windows Platform Binary Table, which has existed since Windows 8. It's not exactly the type of feature that Microsoft or the board vendors would want to publicize, seeing as it gives them persistent rootkit capabilities on the same level as UEFI rootkits.
Most normal people's model of Windows security is "if something goes wrong then I wipe the disk and reinstall Windows," and WPBT completely breaks that model, and has been doing so for 12 years.
Thankfully there are ways to disable it:
https://github.com/Jamesits/dropWPBT
There has been for years now. Disabling it is part of my first-time setup for a new board.
My ASUS X470 board doesn't have it, though; guess it's a bit too old for that
Stop buying ASUS junk imo
Curious, what do you run? Gigabyte is still meh, ASRock I've heard is questionable, MSI is blacklisted garbage for me after a failed bios update and failed flashback restore...
I've only heard good things about Aorus (which is basically Gigabyte), though
I helped a friend spec and build their first machine and they got an Aorus (that's so weird to spell) board but it's literally just branding. The board is fine but has nothing fancy, and it's not crazy expensive but it's sure not cheap either. We have flashed new bios on it twice and the instructions are well over 15 years old and very wrong. It's a word document and like 4 steps, and they can't even be bothered to do that much? What set are they leaving on autopilot? (oh, owners, update your bios as there is a recent exploit in the bios due to lack of ssl/tls.... as in, there is none when checking for updates which can lead to you installing a malicious bios...)
Just... questionable.
I have a while ago...