Hey all,
Friday I checked and there was new firmware available for download. I updated to it via web GUI instead of downloading & uploading to router. After that, instead of everything just continuing working, I was on the Asus router set up page - the same one you get when you reset your router to factory settings. There were some new privacy changes, where I was asked to send Asus data regarding RAM usage, SoC temps and others. I declined but it still notified some data will be sent.
Also... I was doing a reinstall of Windows on my laptop at the point and I haven't activated Windows. When I wanted to do it (gotta do it manually each time as it's pretty tight security on it), I was getting a message "Your hardware has changed", the same one you get when you change the motherboard or some other crucial component. I was like wtf... then I used my Win11 Education key I own and nope, still can't activate it with an unused key, same message.
I then re-flashed the router via download & upload of the same firmware and did the factory reset. After that, I activated Windows. Really, really weird.
I've noticed pages are loading a bit slower - that bit is like 2x slower in some cases, loading the Facebook feed with 400/400Mbps and getting spinners on the page.
This may sound a lot paranoid but I know it is possible as I'm a devops & a software engineer... is it possible there was a MITM attack where we didn't actually get the fw from Asus but rather a modified firmware from "somewhere else"? I wouldn't be asking this if there wasn't a lot that changed. Later I discovered that they removed the WiFi Radar and went crazy as it wasn't in the changelog but on the WiFi Radar page. Those are things THAT SHOULD BE in the changelog. I don't know if Asus messed something up with this or wtf happened but something's off.
Friday I checked and there was new firmware available for download. I updated to it via web GUI instead of downloading & uploading to router. After that, instead of everything just continuing working, I was on the Asus router set up page - the same one you get when you reset your router to factory settings. There were some new privacy changes, where I was asked to send Asus data regarding RAM usage, SoC temps and others. I declined but it still notified some data will be sent.
Also... I was doing a reinstall of Windows on my laptop at the point and I haven't activated Windows. When I wanted to do it (gotta do it manually each time as it's pretty tight security on it), I was getting a message "Your hardware has changed", the same one you get when you change the motherboard or some other crucial component. I was like wtf... then I used my Win11 Education key I own and nope, still can't activate it with an unused key, same message.
I then re-flashed the router via download & upload of the same firmware and did the factory reset. After that, I activated Windows. Really, really weird.
I've noticed pages are loading a bit slower - that bit is like 2x slower in some cases, loading the Facebook feed with 400/400Mbps and getting spinners on the page.
This may sound a lot paranoid but I know it is possible as I'm a devops & a software engineer... is it possible there was a MITM attack where we didn't actually get the fw from Asus but rather a modified firmware from "somewhere else"? I wouldn't be asking this if there wasn't a lot that changed. Later I discovered that they removed the WiFi Radar and went crazy as it wasn't in the changelog but on the WiFi Radar page. Those are things THAT SHOULD BE in the changelog. I don't know if Asus messed something up with this or wtf happened but something's off.
