Razer acts quickly to remove reported Malware

by Steve Ragan - Sep 22 2009, 16:15

Razer, a gaming hardware manufacturer, moved quickly on Monday to prevent customers from being infected by Malware appearing in the driver downloads section of their site. First alerted by some of its community users, Razer was then told by Trend Micro that malicious software was being served up, prompting the gaming peripheral expert to kill their support section.

“Razer was alerted of [a] malicious attack to our support site this past weekend by a malware virus or Trojan. We’ve taken down the support page for the time being while the issue is being resolved. We will still be responding to technical support tickets submitted and we’ll continue to keep you posted,” the company notice reads. As of Tuesday morning, the support section of the Razer website was still offline.

“I have been speaking to the folks from Razer, as soon as they were aware of the issue, they took down the support website and are working really hard to rectify things. It’s really great to see a company that have the safety of their customers so uppermost in their minds,” commented Rik Ferguson, the researcher from Trend Micro who first alerted the company and public to the issue.

Ferguson has a point, as a spokesperson from Razer said that they were investigating the issue, but removed access to the support area just to be safe.

“A large amount of the device drivers offered for download at the Razer support site were infected with a Trojan. The Trojan delivers the original installer but then goes on to drop a copy of WORM.ASPXOR.AB in the System directory,” Ferguson noted.

Neither Razer nor TrendMicro researchers are certain how long the Malware existed alongside various driver downloads. However, Razer offered links to both Trend Micro and Avast for those who downloaded anything from the Razer support site from September 19.

The Malware discovered by Trend Micro had a low detection rate, but Trend Micro’s scanner as well as Avast were flagging the malicious download as risky and removing it. Other notable scanners that will detect the Malware include BitDefender, Sophos, Microsoft, DrWeb, and GData.

If you want to scan online, Trend Micro’s HouseCall is here. You can download Avast here, and BitDefender has an online scanner here.

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