Geekom Removes Malware-Laced LAN Drivers From Legacy Mini PC Pages

Geekom has taken down a legacy download page and apologized after a network driver for several of its mini PCs was found to contain malware, according to reports from Tom's Hardware and TechPowerUp.

The affected LAN driver was tied to Geekom's A7, A8, AE7, AX7 Pro and AX8 Pro machines, with Tom's Hardware also listing the AE8 and AX8 Pro lines. The issue was originally surfaced by VideoCardz. According to TechPowerUp, Windows Security initially flagged the driver as a trojan capable of executing commands from an attacker, and community reports posted to Reddit were subsequently confirmed by scanning services including VirusTotal, FileScan and MetaDefender.

Tom's Hardware identified the payload as the Asruex backdoor, bundled inside the driver installer. Because it ran as part of a driver installation, the malicious code could obtain administrator-level access, enabling data theft, keystroke capture and password retrieval, and it connected to command-and-control servers to allow remote access.