asd process using 100% CPU Usage on core 4.

[Rajjco]

Is this a legit process or malware?

 

[bennor]

Is this a legit process or malware?

ASD is a legitimate Asus security process. Do a forum search for ASD to learn more about it.

 

[Rajjco]

ASD is a legitimate Asus security process. Do a forum search for ASD to learn more about it.

Why is it behaving like a crypto miner?

 

[bennor]

Why is it behaving like a crypto miner?

Reboot the router and see if ASD continues to use one of the cores. It may also help if you post your router model and firmware version.
Edit to add: ASD is ASUS Security Daemon.
RMerlin explained it years ago when someone asked what it was:

It's not related to Trend Micro. It's a separate security daemon from Asus, that handle security-related issues on the router itself. They provide a special set of signature files specific to Asuswrt-Merlin that automatically gets downloaded from them.

 

[Rajjco]

Did a reboot and it started behaving normally now.

Seems like they pushed a faulty signature update.

Looks like issues of asd from 3 years ago are still relevant today.
https://www.asus.com/us/news/6ks8psh9bd8e8g0e/

 

[bennor]

Seems like they pushed a faulty signature update.

Yes. Thread about it at the time (2023).

To anyone who started seeing strange high CPU and memory usage - Merlin is not affected!

Today I started seeing highly suspicious behavior on my RT-AX56U running stock firmware - constantly high CPU usage leading to the full router lockup that does not go away even after a full reset! I spent hours trying to figure out the cause and even ended up ordering another router because I...

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