Asus infects thousands of devices
Researchers discovered in January of 2019 that Asus’s Live Update Utility was silently installing malware on devices. Kaspersky Labs is reporting the hack occurred between June 2018 and November 2018. The Asus Live Update Utility can automatically install updates to computers without user interaction. The hack, estimated to affect more than a million consumers worldwide and known as Operation ShadowHamer, is a cautionary tale about automatic updates allowed on business devices.
Automatic updates is usually a great way to ensure your hardware and software remains fully updated, but this is a great example why it may not always be the best idea to enable the automatic updates feature. It is encouraged to verify the compatibility of any update before installing it on a device, especially deploying the update on a larger scale. Sometimes you can do everything right and still be affected by a cyber-attack from little to know fault of your own. A small business needs to consider the risk from enabling automatic updates versus manually updating every time.