SECURITY NEWS – Yesterday, one in all our readers despatched me an e-mail that stated:
A number of the Chinese language mini-pcs you’re recommending are delivery with adware manufacturing unit put in, in line with Tom’s {Hardware}. Simply thought it’s best to know.
I replied again asking for the hyperlink to the article, which was: Mini PC maker ships programs with factory-installed adware — AceMagic says difficulty was contained to the ‘first cargo’. To say that I used to be involved after studying this text can be an understatement as a result of we have now reviewed a LOT of mini PCs over the previous 12 months or two, and quite a lot of of them are from Ace Magic, Ace Magician, and Kamrui, that are the manufacturers particularly talked about within the article the place folks have discovered pre-installed adware.
I instantly emailed everybody on the Gadgeteer group to tell them about this important difficulty and requested the writers who’ve reviewed mini PCs to scan them to see if malware might be discovered on their assessment samples. Because the Tom’s {Hardware} article talked about that Ace Magic responded about the issue, saying that solely the primary batch of items had this difficulty and that they “fastened” it, I hoped that there have been only a few items and that those we reviewed didn’t have any points. Wishful considering…
Because the day progressed, my writers responded with the outcomes of malware scans of varied mini PC manufacturers that we’ve reviewed, and listed below are the outcomes up to now. Observe that we haven’t scanned each mini PC we’ve ever reviewed, however listed below are those that we have now scanned up to now. I’m beginning with the mini PCs the place we did discover malware.
KAMRUI CK10 Intel Twelfth gen mini PC (assessment by Julian Perry) – FAILED malware scan/INFECTED
KAMRUI CK10 Intel Twelfth Gen 12450H Mini PC assessment
We simply posted this mini PC assessment final week! Julian scanned it with Complete AV scanning software program ($19.99 per 12 months buy that can be utilized on three completely different machines) and was greeted with this alert:
Julian was in a position to take away the malware utilizing the identical Complete AV software program. The assessment has been marked with a warning.
ACEMAGIC AD08 Intel Core i9-11900H Mini PC (assessment by Matt Gregersen) – FAILED malware scan/INFECTED
ACEMAGIC AD08 Intel Core i9-11900H Mini PC assessment – social gathering on the skin, enterprise on the within
That is one other comparatively newly posted assessment from December 2023. Matt discovered the identical ENDEV.exe malware on this machine utilizing the Microsoft Defender scanning software program. The assessment has been marked with a warning.
The next is a listing of mini PCs that we’ve scanned which might be clear and handed the scans
Ace Magician Intel i5 Twelfth-Gen Mini PC (assessment by Julian Perry) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Complete AV.
AceMagic AX15 laptop computer (assessment by Howard Sneider) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Microsoft Defender, Malwarebytes and AVG.
Beelink SEi12 mini PC (assessment by Julian Perry) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Complete AV.
GEEKOM Mini PC IT13 (assessment by Greg Cleveland) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with AVG Free and Microsoft Defender.
Blackview MP80 mini PC (assessment by David Sheneman) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with AVG Free.
Blackview MP80 mini PC (assessment by Kenneth Woodham) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Malwarebytes and AVGfree.
XULU mini PC (assessment by Kenneth Woodham) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Malwarebytes and AVGfree.
Geekom AS6 mini PC (assessment by Matt Gregersen) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Microsoft Defender.
Geekom A5 mini PC (assessment by Matt Gregersen) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Microsoft Defender.
Geekom IT-12 mini PC (assessment by Howard Sneider) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Microsoft Defender, Malwarebytes and AVG.
Acemagic AX16 Professional mini PC (assessment coming quickly) – PASSED malware scan
-Scanned with Malwarebytes and AVG.
Future mini PC critiques on The Gadgeteer
I’ve instructed everybody on the Gadgeteer group that going ahead, any critiques for mini PCs, laptops, and desktop PCs will embrace a compulsory part the place we give the machine a go or fail grade after doing a malware scan.
