Check If Your Asus PC Is Affected by Shadow Hammer Malware Attack

If you have an Asus computer, you will want to check if your device was among the devices affected by the recent attack by the “Shadow Hammer” malware.

You’ve probably seen the alarming headlines about malware , but here’s the deal for those not in the know. The recent wave of malware has spread to over 57,000 Asus computers and laptops, using Asus’ method to deploy software updates to its products. This figure comes from a recently published review by online security company Kaspersky, which is investigating the attack. The report details exactly how the attack was carried out and why these methods caused so much concern.

The Kaspersky Lab report also includes a tool developed by the company for Asus owners to check if their device has been affected by a malware deployment. It only takes a few seconds to find out if your device was the target of an attack.

1. Download shadowhammercheck.zip by clicking the Download archive using the tool link in the Kaspersky SecureList article .
2. Unzip the file to the desired location
3. Open the unzipped “shadowhammercheck” folder and run shadowhammer.exe.
4. The program will run the test on your PC and give you the results almost immediately.

Asus has also released a diagnostic tool for its users to check their PC for malware infection, and it works in a similar way to Kaspersky’s tool.

1. Download “ASDT_v1.0.10.zip” from Asus website
2. Unzip the file
3. Open the file and run “ASDT.exe”.
4. A diagnosis dialog box appears.

You can also use the online tool Kaspersky Shadowhammer to check if your system was on the target list, but you need to know the MAC address of your computer.

1. Open a command line terminal. Press Windows Key + R , search for “cmd” and press Enter.
2. At the command prompt, enter “ipconfig / all” and press Enter.
3. You will be presented with several lines of information. Find all the lines that say “Physical address:” then notice the lines of hexadecimal numbers that follow the lines of the physical address – these lines are your MAC addresses. You can see an example in the screenshot above.
4. Copy each MAC address
5. Then open the Kaspersky Shadow Hammer diagnostic page , copy each MAC address into the search field and click “Check now”. Repeat for each MAC address.

If any of your MAC addresses turn out to be positive, you will need to take action to find and eliminate the malware, and the first step is to arm yourself with a reliable antivirus program.

In fact, even if the app or website didn’t indicate that you were on the “target list,” it doesn’t hurt to run a full antivirus scan (just in case). While there are many great premium options out there, there are also many competent free antivirus and anti-malware programs , including Windows Defender, that can help you remove any traces of Shadow Hammer.

You will also want to update the Asus Live Update app to the most recent version (V3.6.8 or higher) , which fixes the security vulnerability that allowed the Shadow Hammer exploit to be exploited in the first place. This update is highly recommended, as is the installation of antivirus / anti-malware software, even for users who have not targeted Shadow Hammer.

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