Acemagic caught red-handed installing malware on its devices

Your PC safety should be your imperative, but what if your PC manufacturer is intentionally infecting your PC with malware?

Although this sounds like a nightmare scenario, this is what happened with one Chinese PC manufacturer recently, and its users are rightfully outraged.

Outrage sparks after Chinese manufacturer was caught installing malware on its devices

According to The Register, Acemagic has been shipping its PCs with malware, and this was first discovered by a user Net Guy on YouTube.

While the PC comes with some decent specs, it also comes with some malware. However, the malware was caught quickly by Windows Defender after the initial boot.

The malware in question is Bladabindi malware, and if you’re not familiar, this is a backdoor that will steal your information and let hackers install other malware on your PC remotely.

That’s not all, users also reported Redline malware that is designed to collect information from your browser, and it can also steal your cryptocurrency.

These files were hiding in the Recovery partition, but a few were sitting in the Windows folder as well. The company also released a statement addressing the issue:

Our software developers, in an effort to enhance user experience by reducing initial boot time, made adjustments to the Microsoft source code, including network settings, without obtaining software digital signatures, and the RGB lighting control software was also without one. This oversight led to isolated reports of virus-infected mini PCs manufactured before November 18, 2023.

To address this issue, Acemagic is offering refunds for AD08, AD15, and S1 models, made between September and November 2023.

If you don’t want to refund your device, and you feel brave enough, you can also use the clean system image offered on the Acemagic website to remove the malware.

This was such a careless move by Acemagic and the company has tarnished its reputation for good with this stunt.

Malware is no laughing matter, and sometimes it takes the combined effort of the US Government and Microsoft to deal with security breaches, so make sure you get your hardware from reputable manufacturers.