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We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

rmcybernetics.com

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Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#91
post #31

The malware now has 60/67 rating [1] on VT. Their analysis [2] is pretty good too. [1]: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/1679b086f649d92456b2f600... [2]: (PDF) https://www.rmcybernetics.com/files/pdf/Malware-analysis-Fly...

>Their analysis [2] is pretty good too.

seriously? It's rather poor.

>It was identified the malware is packed with Borland Delphi 6.0 - 7.0 as shown in the figure below

Borland Delphi is a compiler. It's not a packer. Saying that it's "packed with Borland Delphi" makes as much sense as "it's packed with visual c++".

>The strings of interest are as shown in the figure below

But if it's packed (as previously suggested), then any strings of interest won't be visible. All we see is a bunch of strings related to dynamically linked libraries. That also doesn't tell you much, because you can dynamically load libraries so all the evil APIs you use don't show up on the list.

The rest of the report seems to be reciting outputs from various reverse engineering tools, with little analysis added. The whole report gave the impression the author is a script kiddie.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#92
post #89

Hug of death probably so I cannot read the article. Anyway that's the reason why I don't buy Chinese crap anymore. I'm not saying that I don't buy anything made in China, almost everything is made in China, but everyone should avoid Chinese crapware. If something doesn't match the description send it back, if you find random executables that you cannot identify send it back, if you are asked to register on some weird…

I bought a bluetooth dongle on Amazon recently. didn't work out of the box, and the instruction booklet told me I had to download and install an unsigned device driver that I should download from a specific dropbox link. I tried to write a measured review on Amazon explaining the problem, but Amazon rejected the review. I threw it away and composed an angsty tweet [1], but I really should have returned it. [1] https:…

I very rarely write negative reviews, but every time I have was for something of this magnitude and not once has any ever been left up on any platform.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#93
post #59

"The malware would collect user data and send it to a remote address." unpopular question, but how is this any different than mistakenly forgetting to disclose 'telemetry' in your code? or backdoors that routinely get disclosed in US embedded hardware products like firewalls and routers? or Discord scanning your entire hard disk? Ill admit the product seems pretty poorly designed from the get-go, but the tactics at w…

It's not really any different but these are "legitimate" companies with "legitimate" interests in people's data so nobody says anything. Governments do the same things that many hackers have gone to jail for at much larger scales and they award themselves medals for it. They literally stockpile exploits and don't help patch vulnerabilities, allowing their own citizens to remain insecure. The FBI once let a child abuse case fall apart because the judge ordered them to disclose the vulnerability and they refused.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#94

Hug of death probably so I cannot read the article. Anyway that's the reason why I don't buy Chinese crap anymore. I'm not saying that I don't buy anything made in China, almost everything is made in China, but everyone should avoid Chinese crapware. If something doesn't match the description send it back, if you find random executables that you cannot identify send it back, if you are asked to register on some weird…

No post body was provided.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#95
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Return shipping is usually up to the customer and shipping back to China is much more expensive than the initial China to the US charges. Sometimes it exceeds the cost of the item itself to try to send it back so it's just cheaper to eat the loss.

> Return shipping is usually up to the customer Not for orders from Amazon or Wal Mart, the two biggest places you'd tend to buy cheap Chinese products from.

That's down to store policies though not any legal requirement. And in the case of Walmart you're not shipping back to China anyways you ship back to some distribution hub/return center in the US. Amazon too often the products are staged and returned to the US.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#96
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> "efficient" MBA eloi outsourced everything to morlocks a long time ago. This is the biggest weakness of the West - and it all stems back to "share holder value". Companies, US ones, in particular, seem to have some absurd drive to pay endless dividends to shareholders, and drive 'value' via share price, by appearing to be profitable. In other words, get stuff from the cheapest provider. It didn't help that at the s…

and it all stems back to "share holder value".

Which is just a business buzzphrase for "Greed."

The West is being eaten alive by its own greed, and the Chinese are just watching us do it.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#97

Hug of death probably so I cannot read the article. Anyway that's the reason why I don't buy Chinese crap anymore. I'm not saying that I don't buy anything made in China, almost everything is made in China, but everyone should avoid Chinese crapware. If something doesn't match the description send it back, if you find random executables that you cannot identify send it back, if you are asked to register on some weird…

Quoted post unavailable.

You cannot possibly blame the Chinese government or the people for the Corona virus. That's just insane.

Granted, the official response wasn't good. But a virus pandemic was ever only a question of time. It's unlikely it could have been prevented wherever it had started.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#98
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not saying that I don't buy anything made in China, almost everything is made in China, but everyone should avoid Chinese crapware. If you spend just a small bit of effort, you can look for items not made in China. They are usually higher quality. Japanese companies (and increasingly large American ones) are moving / have moved their production elsewhere due to an increasingly hostile business environment in Chi…

Is there a reliable way to research non-Chinese manufactured products? I know to just look for the “made in” somewhere on the page or product, but it’s not as simple as including a search tag in a field, either.

This might be something to check out:

ImportYeti

https://www.importyeti.com/

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#99
post #83
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "efficient" MBA eloi outsourced everything to morlocks a long time ago. This is the biggest weakness of the West - and it all stems back to "share holder value". Companies, US ones, in particular, seem to have some absurd drive to pay endless dividends to shareholders, and drive 'value' via share price, by appearing to be profitable. In other words, get stuff from the cheapest provider. It didn't help that at the s…

Yup, and it's even more directed than that. Western MBAs and politicians think they know that manufacturing is just a fungible commodity and think that we're exploiting cheap Chinese labor to 'drive shareholder value'. While they have this myopic focus on quarterly results, the CCP has a 100- and 500-year plan, and is happily exploiting that myopia for strategic economic and military value, including subsidizing mass…

This was the case some 10 years ago, but Chinese labor is no longer cheap. The wealth brought in by making China the factory of the world drove the income level of its middle class up and now there are few advantages in manufacturing your products in China.

Western manufacturers are constantly pulling their factories back from China, many having gained an ultimate net loss from moving in in the 90s and now relocating again.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You cannot possibly blame the Chinese government or the people for the Corona virus. That's just insane. Granted, the official response wasn't good. But a virus pandemic was ever only a question of time. It's unlikely it could have been prevented wherever it had started.

Is there a credible reason why SARS and COVID both came from the same country?

The right official response would've been to not start a cover up (and the rest of the world could've hopefully prepared better). Even the WHO was carrying water for China in Feb 2020.

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