A severe ASUS Armoury Crate vulnerability affects laptops, handhelds, and desktop PCs — Here’s how to check if you’re in the clear

ASUS Armoury Crate is but one piece of specialized management software that many of us have installed on our PC, perhaps without even knowing it. It comes preinstalled on ASUS gaming handhelds, including the Xbox Ally X, as well as ASUS gaming laptops.

If that sounds like hardware you use, it’s time to check up on Armoury Crate. According to an August 10 update on the official ASUS advisory board, “a component used by Armoury Crate” is vulnerable and could be leaving you open to attacks.

Alongside that unmentioned component of Armoury Crate, ASUS has also released security updates for its GPU Tweak III, GPU Tweak II, and AI Suite 3 software.

This vulnerability, listed as CVE-2026-8917, comes with an 8.4 rating. That’s out of a maximum of 10, meaning this isn’t an issue you should ignore for long.

What does this ASUS vulnerability entail?

According to the CVE record, an “IOCTL vulnerability allows a local attacker to write a specific value to an arbitrary memory address, potentially leading to privilege escalation.”

Although the CVE record doesn’t mention Armoury Crate by name, it’s clear that ASUS is concerned with that “certain component” alongside its other standalone software.

How do I update the vulnerable ASUS software?

Updated versions of GPU Tweak III, GPU Tweak II, and AI Suite 3 software can be directly downloaded from the ASUS support website.

You want to be sure that you’re grabbing the most recent version. For GPU Tweak III, I’m seeing version 2.1.7.2. This appears to be a newer version than what’s listed as affected on the CVE website.

For GPU Tweak II, I’m seeing version 2.4.0.0 on the ASUS support page; unfortunately, this version is listed on the CVE page as vulnerable, so I can only guess that ASUS hasn’t yet made the necessary updates to its download packages.

It’s unclear why ASUS hasn’t yet made the secure version of GPU Tweak II available for download. If you’re concerned, my best advice is to simply remove the software entirely until it’s updated.

For AI Suite 3, I’m seeing version 3.01.10, which is thankfully newer than the affected version 2.1.2.0 listed on the CVE page.

And for the actual Armoury Crate software, you can choose to update from within the app itself.

Is there any alternative to ASUS Armoury Crate?

I often use Armoury Crate on my desktop gaming PC to control certain ROG and TUF components, but most of the time it sits idly in the background. It’s not the best software, vulnerabilities aside, but it seems to get the job done.

I’ve read tales of some specific ASUS desktop hardware absolutely requiring Armoury Crate to function properly, but for other ASUS gaming devices, it can be replaced entirely.

Let me introduce you to G-Helper. It’s designed to work with ASUS laptops and gaming handhelds, doing what Armoury Crate does in a streamlined, unbloated app that only eats up about 5MB of space.

You can download G-Helper for free from its official website.

— via PC Gamer

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