ce magazine April 2019 issue

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Check if Your Asus Laptop has the ‘Shadow
Hammer’ Malware
By Guy McDowell
Last Updated on March 28, 2019
This week hackers launched operation “Shadow Hammer” which installed backdoors on thousand’s of
Asus computers. Here’s what you need to know if you have an Asus laptop.
Someone hacked into Asus computers slipped backdoor malware into one of the
company‘s computer updates. As a result, the backdoor could allow hackers to
freely access your computer anytime and without your knowledge. You don‘t have
to be a computer security specialist to understand the magnitude of that. Here is
what you need to know about the so-called ―Shadow Hammer‖ attack and how to
check if your system has been affected.
Asus and the Shadow Hammer Malware Attack
On the upside, your computer is probably not at risk. Shadow Hammer only affects
Asus laptops and not many at that. Researchers at Kaspersky Lab estimated that
around a half a million laptops received the tainted update as an orchestrated attack
running from, ―June 2018 to November 2018 undetected until now,‖ according
to Miriam Cihodariu of Heimdal Security. With the news of the virus being
announced on March 20th, Asus and Kaspersky had already begun working on
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