Nahimic Secret Killswitch

There's a very ... special ... software out there installed on a lot of PCs. It's a system service called Nahimic and is used by software such as "A- Volute", which does something related to audio. It basically causes everything to crash. But there's a secret killswitch ... // So there exists this malware called Nahimic by A-Volute, which is marketed as an audio enhancement // software. In reality it's an aggressive form of malware that injects itself into every audio event process // on the system for god knows what reason. It even includes a tracking/analytics package, (insert tinfoil hat // Our problem is this garbage basically runs OpenGL (why an audio driver does that, who knows, made by morons) // And then we get issues reported both in issue tracker and sentry reports as a result // At least these malware authors were nice to include a dumb "disable" trick where it checks if the exe is exporting // a symbol called NoHotPatch, so here we are. // Hopefully this works and stops the bug reports. Apparently the worst part is this malware aggressively gets reinstalled // by awful low-tier motherboard vendors like MSI, Alienware and others who bundled it into their driver packages // and distributed it over Windows Update // Did I mention they clearly had issues with other apps so instead of fixing their malware, they blacklisted a hundred common // apps and even some games in their own config? Obviously kicked isn't that blacklist :( // This malware seems to no longer be distributed as Nahimic and replaced with "Sonal" by SteelSeries. // Time will tell if it's the same garbage, I'm not volunteering to install it. __declspec(dllexport) void NoHotPatch() { // this is intentionally empty function return; }

A screenshot of a social media post describing Nahimic and A-Volute audio software as malware that injects itself into audio processes, causes crashes, and repeatedly gets reinstalled by hardware vendors. The punchline is a mock C/C++ “killswitch” function named NoHotPatch, presented as a desperate fix for the supposedly malicious software. It is shared as a sarcastic reaction to buggy drivers and terrible PC software. EN: A screenshot of a social media post describing Nahimic and A-Volute audio software as malware that injects itself into audio processes, causes crashes, and repeatedly gets reinstalled by hardware vendors. The punchline is a mock C/C++ “killswitch” function named NoHotPatch, presented as a desperate fix for the supposedly malicious software. It is shared as a sarcastic reaction to buggy drivers and terrible PC software.

• @gentoomemes / 14762 2024-11-16