If a match was found to one of the 600 MAC addresses the computer would download some software from, 'a site masquerading as a legitimate ASUS site, to fetch a second-stage backdoor that it downloaded to that system,' explains Motherboard. Kaspersky found more than 600 unique MAC addresses from over 200 trojanised samples used in this attack.

Interestingly the Asus Live Update malware attack was targeted at a pool of users identified by a limited range of network adapter MAC addresses. It was hosted there between June and November 2018.ĭigital signature on a trojanized ASUS Live Update setup installerĬertificate serial number: 05e6a0be5ac359c7ff11f4b467ab20fc The dodgy software was undetected for so long as it was legitimately signed and hosted on the official and Asus update servers. It estimates that over a million users worldwide possibly ran a computer with this backdoored software update utility. A large number of users have been affected, says the security firm's blog, which is understandable given that Asus is the world's 5th-largest PC vendor. Kaspersky says that it discovered this 'sophisticated supply chain attack involving the ASUS Live Update Utility' in January. This software was installed by default on numerous Asus computer models.

A recent report by Motherboard reveals that hackers managed to sign some malware with a legitimate Asus digital certificate and then uploaded it to Asus' download servers, where it was hosted for several months last year. Asus computers which use or ship with Asus Live Update software installed are at the centre of a new computer hacking story.

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