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Festive Effects - 2 Hrs figuring out what malware was wishing me merry christmas

NotRansomwared
Level 7

Turn on my PC and log in to see a janky, stretched neon christmas "game" running across my desktop. Immediately think I'm being ransomwared (look up christmas-themed malware). No ASUS logo in sight. 

I jump to task manager and see it's running as "Custom Shape", definitely a generic name malware would use, but the overlay closes itself before I figure out what exe it's running under. Suspicions of malware now jumping towards certainty. Start googling "Christmas Custom Shape malware". Yep, bunch of results come up for christmas popups that keep you busy trying to figure out wtf is going on while you get ransomwared in the background.

Eventually stumble upon a Reddit thread where someone had the same issue and associated meltdown https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/18vm3yq

So I guess I echo the sentiment. ASUS, gtfo with this. Why on earth would it ever be appropriate to chuck a splash across someone's screen on startup without any branding or any warning or anything in the application name that indicates its origin? This is insane.

If you're going to make us install buggy, pushy bloatware that requires updating to the latest Addressable LED Strip software before I can change fan settings; at least don't go out of your way to make it look even more like malware. wtf.

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31 REPLIES 31

paralyx
Level 7

Yeah man I was in panic mode for a while until I came across a similar post on Reddit! This is ridiculous - I never consented to having some janky popup appear on my screen without any branding or notification from Armoury Crate.

Calling it christmas.exe - the name of an old worm - and using the default VB icon makes people scared. Whoever did this needs sacking, it is ridiculous.

squeezybeef
Level 7

OMG, I legit thought I had ransomeware! The most annoying thing about this for me is that I don't have Armoury Crate or whatever it's called installed. Just standard ****** that auto installs with my drivers, which I have now uninstalled.

Asus seriously need to do one for this. Totally not acceptable.

All I remember from my overlay thing, was that it was a huge half screen image with a power button on one side! What moron at Asus thought this was a good idea??!

Rodioser
Level 7

I created an account here just to say this. ASUS. THIS HAS TO BE TAKEN DOWN. Or at the very least some big text added saying what the hell this is. Finally Christmas holiday has started for me, and I get a heart attack in the morning that I got some virus. Thankfully I found some reddit post fast enough, but surely many people won't find it. AND FIRE THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS IDEA!

Created an account just to upvote these statements. Legit thought I got  malware because of this.  This thread was the first google result, luckily. 

Woulff
Level 7

Thanks for posting, folks!  I was freaking out!

SathiyaSLS
Level 7

Thanks for posting. I was also thinking that I got virus.
Btw, did asus confirm that the christmas popup is from their side?

Hello Asus,
Please confirm this is your promotion.

kaminskyJoshua
Level 7

ASUS:

REMOTE CODE EXECUTION IS MALWARE. YOU HAVE INSTALLED MALWARE ON OUR COMPUTERS. PEOPLE ARE RE-IMAGING THEIR MACHINES AS WE SPEAK. 

STOP DISTRIBUTING MALWARE.

Aerypear
Level 7

Wishing Asus a Merry ******mas and happy ****** year. What in the ******kkkk
How is it NOT malware to change your lights and have a pop up you. Over here questioning my brother like "what have you been on!?" because I wouldn't put it past him. But seriously??
Second I closed it the GPU lights turned red. Not cute.

Odice
Level 7

I hope asus fire the ****** that thought this was a good idea, and they get sued. Now im here uninstalling every single software Asus related so stupid ass things like this do not repeat. F U ASUS