Boards equipped with rootkit at the hardware level?
Boards equipped with rootkit at the hardware level?
Hello, I was looking into MOBO options for an i7 13700k and saw Gamer's Nexus discuss recent concerns about them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEjH775UeNg He said ASUS installs directly onto the board, essentially adding a rootkit that runs Armory Crate without user permission. I wasn’t sure if this was true, but searching brought up complaints from users who reported unexpected bloatware appearing after a clean Windows setup on their Asus devices. This feels extremely intrusive and risky—something I’d rather not accept.
So, to clarify:
1. Why aren’t more people speaking up about this?
2. Is this issue specific to ASUS or do other manufacturers have similar tactics?
3. a) Are all boards with the 700 chipset affected?
4. b) Are there companies that avoid these kinds of hidden installations?
If you think Armoury Crate is useful, great! But honestly, this isn’t the main point here. Thanks!
Gigabyte typically installs their App Center directly onto the board for RGB fusion features in the latest BIOS versions unless you choose otherwise. It’s usually preferable to select an option that lets you disable it, similar to what Gigabyte offers, or completely avoid it, as Asrock and MSI have not done so previously.
Lenovo also handles this on certain motherboards. They embed instructions in the BIOS to quietly launch their Lenovo Vantage app in Windows upon startup with an active user session. I turned it off on my work machine since it became unnecessary and began displaying ads after some updates. From a technical standpoint, it isn’t a rootkit—it’s a genuine capability. You can turn it off anytime; rootkits tend to be more covert, like DRM, and there are free tools available to modify the BIOS and remove those settings from Gigabyte’s BIOS. UEFI bios are generally modular, allowing such features to be disabled or entirely removed as extensions or plugins, making them easy to adjust or eliminate.
I've noticed this trend with several manufacturers recently. Gigabyte has begun doing it, and I think I recall an MSI board doing it to me before. I'm not sure which one, but my current setup doesn't have this issue. a) I don’t know of any that don’t. b) I haven’t seen this on an ASRock board either—my last ASRock was a Taichi from 2020, and things can change quickly over three years. It seems reasonable to assume major vendors do this. Personally, it’s more bothersome because it’s usually the first thing I turn off, stays that way, and makes sense from a security standpoint if ASUS ever gets compromised.