Cheatengine

[Assassin7772]

Hey guys, I was just on YouTube a couple minutes ago and I saw a video of someone "hacking" his Minecraft server by using the hacktool "Cheatengine". It let him duplicate items and make more of them. I thought it was funny, but then something hit me...I'd used that tool about 2 years ago. I used to play a game called "Arcanists", you can go play it at funorb.com, the website is owned by JaGeX (Jagex), the makers of the famous MMORPG "RuneScape". Funorb is their secondary site with many games, kinda like addictinggames.com or miniclip.

Well, at the time when I downloaded Cheatengine, I was not as educated about viruses or malware. I wasn't paranoid about security as I am now. I downloaded it so I could change my skin color to a color that wasn't in the game's appearance options. The thing is, I did a search on VirusTotal just now and typed "Cheatengine". Virustotal searched its database and came up with many reports. I clicked a few and to my alarm, most reports had 22+ detections. The latest report had only 2 detections. The older detections were made by the lead antivirus vendors, such as Kaspersky Labs, ESET, Symantec, Sophos, Avast, and even Emsisoft and Avira! I have Avira Antivirus Premium on my computer, and I've scanned multiple times and it hasn't found anything.

I've installed Avast, AVG, Norton, Emsisoft, Bitdefender Free Scanner, Comodo Internet Security, etc. on my computer at some point in time in the past couple years and they haven't found anything. Most of the detections were regarded as "Hack tool", which is essentially what Cheatengine is. Does Malwarebytes detect any infections because I've been to Yahoo Answers, Wiki Answers, and Norton SafeWeb and almost all comments indicate that Cheatengine does not contain any malware in the sense of the word. It lets you edit RAM and "cheat" at games, but it doesn't harm your PC or spy on you.

Also, I've seen comments on VirusTotal saying that cheatengine is "#goodware", scanners just find it as malware because it comes bundled with something called "OpenCandy". I don't know anything about "OpenCandy" except that its adware. Does Malwarebytes also scan for OpenCandy cuz ever since I've downloaded Malwarebytes, it hasn't found anything in its Quick, Full, and Flash scans (Trial version). Do you think I could be infected after all those years. I scan regularly with Malwarebytes, Hitman Pro, Avira Antivirus Premium, and sometimes Bitdefender OnlineScanner. Not a single infection (found). Any help would be appreciated.

P.S: Sorry for those long walls of text. Just a trip down Memory Lane

[goldhound]

Malwarebytes does not check for adware. It does flag PUPs (potentially unwanted programs). It seems you are likely not infected but you could try Superantispyware, it catches adware/sypyware.

[AdvancedSetup]

Well I wouldn't say we don't detect adware - it depends on it's classification. Without getting too deep into the subject basically if some company is offering software that you have to click on and read an EULA (End User License Agreement) in order to install the software then except in a rare case we won't flag it because you as the user chose to install the software regardless of how lousy a piece of software it might be.

Take Babylon Toolbar - we don't detect and try to remove it either even though most users don't seem to like or want it but they have an installer, they have an EULA that you can cancel and not install the software (though often hidden in with other software and users ignore and just happily keep clicking next without reading - big NO NO) the company has a website and appears to be legit. If we were to target software like that we could potentially cause a legal issue for ourselves.

[Assassin7772]

Malwarebytes does not check for adware. It does flag PUPs (potentially unwanted programs). It seems you are likely not infected but you could try Superantispyware, it catches adware/sypyware.

Thank you. I will download SAS.

Well I wouldn't say we don't detect adware - it depends on it's classification. Without getting too deep into the subject basically if some company is offering software that you have to click on and read an EULA (End User License Agreement) in order to install the software then except in a rare case we won't flag it because you as the user chose to install the software regardless of how lousy a piece of software it might be.

Take Babylon Toolbar - we don't detect and try to remove it either even though most users don't seem to like or want it but they have an installer, they have an EULA that you can cancel and not install the software (though often hidden in with other software and users ignore and just happily keep clicking next without reading - big NO NO) the company has a website and appears to be legit. If we were to target software like that we could potentially cause a legal issue for ourselves.

Okay, I've never had any problems with this computer ever since installation and uninstallation of Cheatengine, just making sure. Thanks.

Thank you both for informative answers. I didn't know that Malwarebytes didn't detect some times of adware.

[goldhound]

My personal opinion of SAS is that it is a good program but because it finds common adware which is really not malicious but more of an annoyance, it just makes the SAS program look impressive. After installing both programs on numerous folks computers over time i do not believe that it is as efficient at finding malware as MBAM.

[Assassin7772]

My personal opinion of SAS is that it is a good program but because it finds common adware which is really not malicious but more of an annoyance, it just makes the SAS program look impressive. After installing both programs on numerous folks computers over time i do not believe that it is as efficient at finding malware as MBAM.

Of course, I am of the same opinion. I don't think anything can beat Malwarebytes, at least not yet. It is a remarkable product.