Maybe LG asked Windows users if they wanted the ad service installed now or in three days.
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We’ve connected with the team at LG and as an immediate next step, they have agreed to disable the McAfee pop-up from their app. We appreciate LG working with us toward a shared goal of a better experience for our mutual customers. We will keep improving here with our ecosystem partners.
Oh, so does that mean you're also going to improve your own garbage, ad-laden start menu, Microsoft?
I like how it wasn't okay because it's "Microsoft's turf." You know what's coming next? An ad ecosystem that's built into the monitor, independent of the operating system.
They won't stop. "Better product" went out the window long ago in favor of juicing the customer for every penny. Don't give them your money and list it as a primary factor in any questionnaire you may run across.
Microsoft Recall is only Software Level, the users demand Hardware level surveillance!
Nono, they didn't want LG competing against their own spyware bloat "promoted partner marketing." Only Microsoft is allowed to give you ads!
And, yknow, the preinstalled bullshit that comes with HP, Dell, Lenovo...
Building it into the monitor wouldn't even be hard. Especially if it's a lightning bolt connection, which can also act as a USB connection. So it coult filch a network connection, run ads overlayed on the monitor. Monitor is touchscreen and you have to physically press the tiny "dismiss" button next to the huge "install" button. Mistakenly pressing install sends a keyboard command to the PC that opens a terminal and runs a winget install command.
The fact that I could think of this means that it's probably already in the works.
Obligatory: you can improve your Windows experience by installing Linux.
Non snarky comment: you can disable driver craplets from auto-installing using group policy or the registry.
run gpedit.msc
Computer Configuration
> Administrative Templates
> System
> Device Installation
Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata
= Enabled
That will set the following registry key:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Device Metadata]
"PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork"=dword:00000001
You know what prevents LG monitors from installing a McAfee popup ad on your machine?
Linux.
😀 👍 for now, they probably looking for a way as we speak!
That would be classified as malware, as it is installing something on my system without my desire, consent, or approval.
wonder if they could bypass it by laying the ads directly (hardware level) over any screen input haha
They can, they would just need an excuse to make people connect the monitor to the internet to get new ads to be worth the trouble of implementing it.
I know more than one place that uses monitors for safety messages. If they overlay that there will be bug court cases. Likely criminal
You can disable ACR on your TV by disconnecting it from the internet.
Wait until you here about the hidden mesh networks they create with other iot shit
It would be awesome if a website cropped up like "ifixit" but was "ibreakit" or something. And it had instructions to surgically physically disable stuff like this on all sorts of models. Like "make a marker on a dremel bit that is 1/2 an inch deep, measure 3 inches from this corner and 4 inches from that corner, make a dot. Drill your dremel into that dot to the 1/2inch marker on your dremel bit to break the traces to the wifi antenna"
Or something like that. It would clearly have to have very bright "if you break your shit we are not responsible" warnings.
has not been immune to this type of attack. this is a trusted delivery mechanism being hijacked.
What is the symptom of a Linux machine being attacked by this? What can even happen? Doesn't the operating system need to support whatever is being installed, and also allow it to happen?
To play devils advocate for them, if whoever is packaging fwup for the monitor either doesnt catch LG packaging malicious shit with it, or is for some reason allowing it to happen, it could happen.
but then you'd have the wrath of at least a thousand enraged linux nerds on your ass and their stock would probably get tanked for a day.
But I'm saying, what path does the installation take in order to even end up on disk? How would it get permission to run sudo/doas or gain root access in order to install shit, without my user/admin input?
Most linux distros have a program called fwupd that installs hardware related updates. That was my example of the way in because most hardware updates are proprietary.
Fwupd is for updating on-device firmware AFAIK. This "attack" uses windows update mechanism for automatic installation of drivers to push additional software directly on users' PCs.
Discover has shown me a UEFI update before in the list of updates its wants to do and ive confirmed it. If people aren't paying attention to updates and just updating its very much possible they could get something like that accidentally
For example, AMD recently removed RAM encryption without telling anyone via an update.
Technically, Ubuntu counts as they have had some ads for commercial (even closed) services. Assuming you wanted to set up your system as pure as possible.
The OS itself doesn't generally know if the upstream organization pushing updates has broken their promises or not.
Ubuntu counts as they have had some ads for commercial (even closed) services.
Did those ads show up because of something a monitor chose to install?
Not that time, but some Linux distros can also pull additional software automatically for connected hardware
The whole point of this comment thread is that Linux is or isn't supposedly immune to this type of attack. Has this ever happened to a Linux machine that anyone knows of, that a monitor has installed software like this? If not, I think it's safe to say we can recommend Linux over others.
so, this driver is delivered part of microsofts store system. linux app repos are vulnerable to library take over. there have been a few stories but this ine almost made it into red hads enrerprise lts
I don't get it, what does the xz lib being attacked have to do with delivering and installing software on Linux, by the command of a connected monitor? Feels like a different kind of attack surface, or? Pardon my ignorance.
i meant that if it made it in the rhel, it would have arrived through a trusted path. this malware came theough a trusted path in windows. their update delivery system.
Actually, unlike on Windows, fwupd itself contains the code to flash firmware on various types of devices, and all the manufacturer provides is the firmware file itself.
On Windows you can (apparently) provide an arbitrary installer yourself instead. That said, theoretically a UEFI upgrade could mess with your system since that firmware ends up running on the main CPU itself.
It is also conceivable that you could have rogue firmware on some other device that can mess with the system via DMA (direct memory access). But then we are talking full on hacking, and likely unreliable across different kernel versions etc. Notably monitors don't have such access. Enabling the IOMMU should also help protect against this (since that restricts what RAM addresses each peripheral can access).
Why is McAfee still a company? What is the business case for such fuckrot software? Who even pays who here?
Tl;Dr: I believe it takes advantage of tech-illiteracy.
My experience has been that McAfee pays for PC hardware manufacturers to include their service as an install with their drivers. This results in people seeing "Oh my new PC has McAfee antivirus," and it becomes their main antivirus by merit of always being in-your-face, then it eventually throws popups that say "Your antivirus is expiring, pay us!" To which if that's become your go-to, you'd likely pay without thinking much of it. Most people just aren't tech literate enough to take action on things. It always blows me away just how bad the common human's tech literacy is, like even 2FA services aren't understood by most people, heck most people dont even know how to uninstall a program on Windows.
Windows and hardware bloatware combining forces? Next thing you know, your monitor will blue screen because McAfee detected your desktop wallpaper as a threat.
I wish McAfee would die already. Fucking malware
What the ever-loving fuck. Legalized virus distribution on your LAN, planned, developed, and deployed by peripheral manufacturers? I'm so glad that I know better than to use Windows anywhere, and know better than to buy "modern" computing hardware - as with automobiles the somewhat older stuff is perfectly adequate and comes without all these kinds of infosec risks.
The local retail computer "recycling" center has shelf after shelf after shelf of crufty old monitors, towers, servers, laptops and other components to choose from. Sure all those have certain risks as well (but probably not "smart" ones) but it's starting to feel like it's time to go stock up as the computing hardware scene gets more dystopian every day.
If you’re still running Windows on a personal machine you’re honestly just asking for this shit now.
Never been a better time to switch
The pop up is not the issue. The recent gamers nexus video about this is well worth watching.
LG believes it is your responsibility to tell anyone entering your premises, that your LG device will be spying on them.
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