Hackers Attack ASUS Live Update Planting Malware

Update!

Following the article below, Kaspersky Labs have released a tool to help users identify if they have been affected by the malware. You can learn more by visiting the website here!

ASUS Live Update

If you own ASUS technology, be it on a PC or (more likely) laptop, then the chances are that you have the ‘Live Update‘ software installed. This program effectively allows you to keep your system up-to-date with the latest support and drivers available.

In a report via TechPowerUp, however, you might want to check out when you last performed an update. Why? Well, hackers have successfully infiltrated the system allowing for malware to be planted on potentially thousands of systems.

Kaspersky Labs

Following a number of detections on their anti-virus system, Kaspersky Labs has found that the ASUS Live Update software has been compromised. If should be noted that this may have only potentially affected users who opted for ‘automatic updates’. They have, however, found that many have seen malware placed on their system via the tool.

Although only thousands have yet been reported, it is believed that as many as half a million ASUS products may have been affected by this.

Digital Signature

The hackers reportedly were able to successfully gain (or replicate) the digital signature required. As such, both Windows and ASUS systems were tricked into believing that these updates were both safe and legitimate.

If you do, therefore, own an ASUS laptop, you might just want to hold fire on updates for a little while. At the very least, it does perhaps highlight that manually updating, while tedious, can be a safer route to prevent these early spreads. It is, after all, better to be safe than sorry!

What do you think? Do you own an ASUS laptop? Do you have updates set to automatic? – Let us know in the comments!