Now check the other mini PCs from other random Aliexpress, Banggood, Gearbest and Temu vendors…
Kinda low effort when just a windows defender scan can detect it.
It comes pre installed with Windows, so that’s a given isn’t it?
You’re repeating what @sugartits@lemmy.world said 😉
This is why we do fresh installs on new hardware. Preferably Linux 🙂
Unfortunetaly, that does close to nothing when the issue is spyware on firmware
According to this Tom’s Hardware article (https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/mini-pcs/mini-pc-maker-ships-systems-with-factory-installed-spyware-acemagic-says-issue-was-contained-to-the-first-shipment) it isn’t firmware based spyware but just existing on the machine drive.
They were also found on the restore partition so a full wipe and fresh install would eliminate the issue. AceMagic have also claimed that the issue was isolated to the first round of shipments.
It’s reasonable to consider whether to trust a company that shipped spyware in the first place. I would have a hard time with that.
Nothing in this article said anything about the device firmware being compromised
How do you know? They find spyware not in firmware, but that doesn’t cover what they didn’t find.
Maybe we should have a working Linux live USB before we buy a new laptop so that we can set it up without connecting it to the home router.
Which, I would expect, happens to most of these shitty pcs from no-name Chinese brands.