ASUS pre-installs Japanese Eee Box PCs with worm, issues recall

Uh oh. ASUS just issued a recall for all Eee Box PCs sold in Japan due to a nasty pre-installed worm. The malicious code dubbed "recycled.exe" may attempt to download additional malware while attempting to replicate itself to attached USB storage devices at the first opportunity. Of course, this isn't the first time that ASUS has been embarrassed by its image burns. Who could forget the the illegal keygen and confidential documentation shipped on those brand new laptops last month? Apparently, only ASUS who has yet to clean house.

[Via The Inquirer]

[Lance @ Oct 14th 2008 7:38AM]

Love the pic!

[eggothewaffle @ Oct 14th 2008 7:58AM]

Indeed! Why isn't that part of the Eee Box chassis paintjob/design?

[thedesolate1 @ Oct 14th 2008 6:57PM]

Epic!

I

[thedesolate1 @ Oct 14th 2008 7:00PM]

What no pr0n to top it off?
Asus needs to work on its quality control....
what the hell is going on... I wonder if they do drug tests on their employees. First built in pirated software now this..

[Mike @ Oct 14th 2008 7:42AM]

A little slow on this one ... I guess you're too busy gearing up for the Macbook launch.

[iEye @ Oct 14th 2008 7:51AM]

Well, when you make an inferior product, you might as well go ahead and include a virus or two to speed up the eventual process, and the eventual outcome or the user switching to a mac...

[Jack Storm @ Oct 14th 2008 8:10AM]

iSmell iFanboy

[eiki @ Oct 14th 2008 9:24AM]

avatar: RIP iEye, we wish!

[OCEAN 'CLAK' 20th Account Happy @ Oct 14th 2008 8:00AM]

cute worm guess it comes with all eees, love the picture

[Fusion Fuzo @ Oct 14th 2008 8:04AM]

NICE, this would be better if you could get that worm printed on the eee, brilliant design

[Kris @ Oct 14th 2008 8:12AM]

I don't understand. It's really simple to avoid these kinds of issues. What the hell is ASUS' process in creating images for their machines?

[Magallanes @ Oct 14th 2008 8:53AM]

Because almost every company have a bunch of CEOs and executives worried most in how quick a product can hit the street instead to think about quality.
In fact, currently its common the motto :"sell now, fix later"

[Ignatius @ Oct 14th 2008 9:01AM]

Put it this way; if you pay a factory worker who is charged with having to create and install images onto PCs, treat him like crap and don't give him a raise.. he gets back at you.

[Laughing Man @ Oct 14th 2008 11:03AM]

You act like they did this on purpose or don't take the time to check images before use. Neither of these is the case. This is an example of one, maybe two workers with a vendetta or too much free time being an ass. Someone will be fired for this, I promise. Do this enough time, a whole department my lose their job.

[Bellzebub @ Oct 14th 2008 8:13AM]

The majority of people I know with PCs have no idea how to prevent worms or computer viruses and so Asus are only cutting out the middle man and hurrying along the inevitable! Maybe they should stop calling consumer PCs "PC" and start labelling them as "wormeries"?

[Salty Sea Dog @ Oct 14th 2008 8:44AM]

Still, it might have been worse: they could have come pre-installed with Vista.

[Cybergypsy @ Oct 14th 2008 8:50AM]

LOL.......

[Ignatius @ Oct 14th 2008 9:00AM]

Wow. What's funny is that if he had mentioned OS X instead of Vista, this post would have another 50 replies to it.

[Brian @ Oct 14th 2008 9:02AM]

There is nothing wrong with Vista

[kal326 @ Oct 14th 2008 9:03AM]

A now a word from Asus's new official spokesperson, Mr Homer J Simpson. "Doh!"

[Jamesy @ Oct 14th 2008 9:25AM]

Way2Go ASUS, installing pirated copies of XP on our boxes are we?

[telepheedian @ Oct 14th 2008 10:44AM]

Umm, no. RTFA

[Gregory Christopher @ Oct 14th 2008 3:36PM]

hell ya, XP the way to go, but I cannot figure out a way to downgrade to xp

[telepheedian @ Oct 15th 2008 12:18PM]

Microsoft released a licensing program for XP specifically for netbooks and nettops, they have to stay under the maximum system requirements.

[Gregory Christopher @ Oct 14th 2008 3:24PM]

IF thats not self-pwnage, I dont know what is!

[Toungy @ Oct 17th 2008 7:14PM]

At first I was like "God that's an awesome Wii paint-job."

Then I read the article.