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Asus.com Compromised With Exploit Code
Juha-Matti Laurio writes in with news that the Web site of ASUSTeK Computer (asus.com) has been compromised to spread exploit code. The original report from Kaspersky Lab claimed that the compromise lead to code exploiting the recently patched Microsoft Windows Animated Cursor (.ANI) 0-day vulnerability, but sans.org found no evidence of this. Apparently a malicious iframe was added to one of the machines in asus.com's DNS round-robin.
Thats a publicity disaster for ASUS...
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Perhaps now they will finally fix the missing www. entry in their DNS server. I have always hated that they didn't have that patched.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
... you don't have to visit porn, warez or shady sites to get your computer infected with all sorts of nastiness; "trusted" sites will just do.
that Investor Village was spreading some "updater.exe" the other day (via ads), so this might have been a bit larger than just the one site?
TFA:
Then:
So is next3.png the real exploit and are they using "jpeg" to mean an image file? Or is there a jpeg file involved here?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Most of the motherboard oem's use IIS for their web sites. They tend to be incredibly slow, go down all the time, and often render poorly (or not at all) on anything other then IE.
All signs of poor admins.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
What this actually shows is that Windows is unfit for business uses. Even when using their top-end Windows Server products, it's obviously a very poor choice. Between the great expense, the low quality and the numerous security problems, there's no good reason to be using it.
I can think of one reason why a company would go with Windows-based systems: ignorance. This includes ignorance on the part of the network designers and administrators, who do not stand up and demand to use Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, AiX, FreeBSD, Mac OS X or some other system. This also includes ignorance on the part of the management team that is authorizing the purchase and use of such software.
Many people who like Asus products know the Asus website is awful. No problem on that site would come as any surprise to anyone who goes there for updates or information. I'm glad it's no big deal this specific problem but that is still one dodgey site that needs TLC quite desperately.
Ok, friday I reinstalled a Asus laptop. While applying updates I was downloading asus drivers. Should I be concerned that I visited their site without a fully patched system? I hate to do it all over again? Any suggestions in how I can tell if I was infected.
Yes, the admins are to blame. Even as Windows administrators, they should be advocating the use of Solaris, Linux, AiX, HP-UX, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, or some other non-Windows system. Why is that? Because those are secure, reliable, efficient, high-quality operating systems. If the admins don't advocate the use of such systems, and instead suggest Windows, then they are not performing their job correctly. They should be relieved of their duties.
But we can't blame just the admins. We also have to blame the network designers and integrators who actually put such systems into place. Again, if any of them recommends the use of Windows, then they are not performing their job correctly. They should be relieved of their duties.
Furthermore, we also have to blame the management that allows for the purchase and installation of those Windows systems. They should know by now that Windows is not the sort of system that should be used for any purpose whatsover. Again, any manager who in any way authorizes the use of Windows is not performing his or her job correctly. He or she should be relieved of his or her duties.
It is slow, poorly designed, and hard to navigate. I have seen recent software/firmware updates appear, then disappear later. These ghost software updates dont work at all or cause problems.
The Kapersky source material is poorly written. Dig was used to compare DNS servers, but the actual problem was a round-robin home page with outreaching code with little presents inside. At first glance, it sounded like a DNS exploit but it's not-- it's a good old fashion page re-write. DNS has nothing to do with it.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
As much as I hate to agree with a troll, he's partially right. It's best to assume you have been infected. Even if all the current anti-spyware doesn't find it, that doesn't mean it won't pop up soon. We don't know enough about this malware to identify what it is and if you have been affected, apparently.
On the other hand, the troll is pretty much wrong about everything else, including "Furthermore, if you use WINE you can run virtually all of your existing Windows applications and games." I have been trying to get windows-based games to run for quite some time, and with the exception of a few favored games (WoW) and some old ones that were really simple, not much works at all, let alone with hours of tweaks. (Actually, I don't even own WoW, so I could be wrong about how well it works as well.)
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
How dare their web site go down when I need a driver? How dare anyone ever have a problem they don't know how to solve in sufficient time to deal with my selfish and entitled demands? Their tech support exists (solely, I might add) to tell me the bios version I need. So bye bye Asus, I consign you to the ash heap of history while I move along to a company that forces its developers to blog for me, whose support staff reads my every web site comment (including the ones on third party sites), and that spends every last dollar it has on server infrastucture. Of course, I don't particularly care that this company will be out of business in no time, because there are a constant influx of new companies who are willing to lose money for a year and fold.
And to top it all off... BAH HUMBUG!
I'm running Linux right now. If I go to the ASUS site and view the hacked iframe or whatever, will it be like Yoda fighting whathisname where he absorbs the Force Lightning and throws it back at his opponent?
.ANI: Woah, wtf is this shit! .ANI: AHHHH!
It'll be like:
Linux: I ownz you d00d!
ASUS.com gets knocked off-line.
That'd be righteous. Or I could lay off the rum.
In other words, that AC was not a troll, just an AC preaching to the choir. Your description of your experience with WINE is not the norm these days. But we don't know the extent of your problems because you don't name any apps that don't work. WINE is an appropriate substitute for many people.
Have you actually tried to use their servers?
.tw version.
They are so unbelievably slow and unresponsive you have to use the
I don't remember always having those problems, but in the last few years it seems they have not grown to meet the demand.
I think this should guarantee safety for more then a few of us who gave up going back there.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I have been trying to get windows-based games to run for quite some time, and with the exception of a few favored games (WoW) and some old ones that were really simple, not much works at all, let alone with hours of tweaks.
What games aren't working for you? Remember, just because you can't get it working doesn't mean that it doesn't work just fine for other people. Instead of mislabelling me a "troll", perhaps we can work through your problems with WINE.
The first thing you should try is installing the latest version of WINE, which is currently 0.9.34. It would help if you gave more details about your system, as well. What version of X are you running? What OpenGL implementation do have installed? What version of GCC are you using? What distribution are you running?
I'm surprised that whomever managed to crack into ASUS's servers only inserted malevolent HTML. Imagine the utter destruction they could have caused if they had *enhanced* the firmware downloads with some sort of (probably boot-sector) virus, or simply modified them to destroy the motherboard... *Shudder*
Why wouldn't they? Are the file images stored separately or otherwise better protected?
I needed to reinstall windows on a box so I went to the Asus website to see if it felt like working today. It was slow as hell as usual but when I finally got to the page for my mobo the links to where the drivers were actually hosted were completely broken. I tired again the next day and still the same thing. I was kinda pissed because I've bought a lot of Asus mobo's as well as several Asus video cards and their website has always sucked but now it's totally non functional. I know all the stuff I need (realtek audio, marvel nic, intel chipset, and the RAID drivers) but it's a pain to track all that down separately and be sure your installing the right stuff. I'd have used the original CD but it was lost in a move. So I phoned Asus support (long distance, no toll-free or LD plan), waited on hold and politely explained the problem I was having with the website and that's it's a chronic problem. So he asked what drivers I needed and I said I needed drivers for my model number (which I gave him, can't remember it now). He then pretty much screamed at me which DRIVERS I needed (like I'm an idiot or something) so I said all of them. I thought it was understood that when reinstalling (which I had already said I was doing) it was implied that one needed the drivers for all the hardware on the board. So then a long pause (checking the website I assume) he started mumbling where I could get a some of the drivers (from non-Asus websites) and said I'd have to wait for such and such. He claimed the problems with the website were due to upgrading for Vista, yea right but I went along. I explained that it really wasn't acceptable to me to have to wait for drivers on my primary computer (my system was non-functional, almost) and asked if there was some other way he could provide me the drivers. I suggested FTP or email. He said he didn't have access to that so I asked if I could speak with a supervisor. After uttering the S-word I was quickly put on hold and then disconnected about 5 min later. All at my expense for long distance. So now I was really quite angry so I phoned back, waited all over again. I didn't raise my voice or curse (just as before) and was as polite as I could be to the next person I talked to. I explained I had just been hung up on by someone else and the person took my name and phone number. I'm not sure what for but I gave it anyway. Then after I explained the problem he gave me a email address I could contact and that they'd email me the drivers within 24 hours. I really needed my computer working so I didn't end up bothering and found the drivers elsewhere on the net. But anyways, my rants pretty much over and my main point is I'm not buying anymore Asus stuff until they fix their website. There's lots of other companies that make just as good mobo's AND are able to host drivers reliably. It really is an important part to the overall product offering and I can't see why a company the size of Asus can't pull off a website that works.
But to diff the directory tree?
Quickly?
There must be a tool that does this..
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
Thought you might appreciate this.
They run Windows 2003. Just about says it all doesn't it?
On the other hand, I recently following some live changing events I had to work with three different machines in getting them back up and working. A HP kayak early P3 generation, a self built asus P3 (both dual) and a g3.
Can you guess from wich site I had the least problem getting info?
Yeah the apple site was fast, and constantly telling me about OS-X while the actuall bloody machine ran 8.6, HP had retired much of the data leaving only ASUS to still have all the relevant data simply online. Slow yes, but available without jumping through hoops.
Asus website is a horror, let there be no mistake about that, BUT they do have a track record of keeping all data online and easily accesiable and not constantly trying to sell you something new when looking up info about old stuff.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You bought a cutrate product and expect firstrate support.
Mmm, do you have any idea how much tech support costs? Do you have any idea for that matter just how little margin there is on products like this?
They just don't want to do personal tech support because it eats away their profits like you won't believe.
Oh, and if you know your device, you can easily find it on their site and then find all the drivers you need.
It is slow as hell, to be sure but you cannot fault them for you not being able to find the required drivers.
No you sound like the typical customer who buys a lada but expects a roll-royce style customer support.
Ain't going to happen, and Asus knows this. They have done it this way for long enough for people to know better and they are still in business, because people like me know and accept the trade-offs.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yeah, wine cannot even run simple mfc applications correctly. It is good as an ad-hoc substitution, but not a real solution. An example: fixme:richedit:RichEditANSIWndProc WM_STYLECHANGING: stub fixme:richedit:RichEditANSIWndProc WM_STYLECHANGED: stub fixme:richedit:RichEditANSIWndProc WM_STYLECHANGING: stub fixme:richedit:RichEditANSIWndProc WM_STYLECHANGED: stub fixme:richedit:RichEditANSIWndProc ECO_AUTOWORDSELECTION not implemented yet! fixme:richedit:RichEditANSIWndProc ECO_NOHIDESEL not implemented yet! fixme:richedit:RichEditANSIWndProc ECO_WANTRETURN not implemented yet!
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I read another commenter talk about how Chinese hackers (given away by the characters) overlapped his entire companies web browsers with iframes and used clever java to capture every keystroke and input, could this be somewhat related? Sorry, didn't RTFA
I'm running 9.33, and 9.34 does solve one of my major issues. (The cursor for Guild Wars.) I'm running Kubuntu and I'm just waiting for the package to update so I can have that. It still has major sound issues, and locks up, though. (I tested with wine-git.)
Morrowind runs, but has no music because wine refuses to play the mp3 soundtrack. Playable, though, I admit, once you use a no-cd patch.
And there's my biggest complaint: You HAVE to use a crack on most games to even get them to start up. There's been patches offered to workaround safedisc, but they aren't even accepted so that people can help work out the bugs in them. They are just flat rejected.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is the one I wanted to play so badly, but I went looking for my CD the other day and I've apparently lost it. I'm not going to purchase another for Windows because I have GameTap (which doesn't even -begin- to work with Wine) and it's in their library. And the Linux one is impossible to find, even on Ebay.
Other games: Rama (Which plays, except the video skips ahead quite often and you miss important information in videos), Pandora's Box, and Septerra Core. The last 2 don't play at all. I have apparently lost quite a bit of my game collection, so I can't test some of my other favorite games like Black & White and all the Quest for Glory games.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
remember when companies would just have an FTP site (sorted by product model) that you could get in and download the drivers you needed?
Progress, I tell ya, progress.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
no but i wish you were you fucking cunt
I was just out on the Asus site and there are no warnings or notices about this event. What happened to corporate responsibility? They've potentialy distributed malicious code to thousands of people who are likely this minute getting their identities stolen and bank accounts drained without so much as a notice on their site.
Asus will never get my business, that's for sure!
www is a host name within a domain zone, not a subdomain. It COULD be done that way, but the domain zone data would be very different...
What would anyone have against the American Nihilist Underground Society?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca