cloquat Posted April 20, 2017 ID:1118552 Share Posted April 20, 2017 (edited) Hi, Why does my software firewall randomly prompt me about malwarebytes app trying to contact telemetery.malwarebytes.com? I have all of that disabled. Also, my software firewall notifies my that malwarebytes app seems to be quite frequently contacting hubble.mb-cosmos.com every time (seems like it) I launch a program. Currently using v3.0.6.1469 Edited April 20, 2017 by cloquat More info. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
1PW Posted April 20, 2017 ID:1118614 Share Posted April 20, 2017 Hello @cloquat and A Malwarebytes staffer may weigh in with additional information. What you are seeing are routine operational communications between client systems (with Malwarebytes 3.0 installed) and Malwarebytes' backend servers for threat detection and analysis. This differs from the general level, after the fact, information voluntarily gleaned through usage and threat statistics. Thank you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloquat Posted April 20, 2017 Author ID:1118800 Share Posted April 20, 2017 @1PW Thanks! Though, I am not sure I would call it "routine" for a program reach out to a telemetery site numerous times a day, unless it is gathering/reporting some sort of information. That coupled with calling another website whenever I launch a program... looks and sounds suspicious at best. Never had that happen with previous versions of v3 and older. Last thing I want is a security type program to be doing such things. It's bad enough that other big named companies (ahem.. MS) is forcing it on their customers. Hopefully an official rep will be able to shed some more light into this matter. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikhils Posted April 21, 2017 ID:1118844 Share Posted April 21, 2017 (edited) Hello @cloquat What you are seeing is expected. The Hubble.cosmos calls are not for telemetry, but are instead referenced during real-time and scanning operations to improve detection accuracy and reduce the potential for false positives. Opting out of the Usage and Statistics setting prevents sending of any data related to scanning, real-time protection events, etc. but certain data related to license, version of software installed, etc. is always sent regardless (to facilitate proper program operation). The latest EULA and Privacy Policy are always available from our main website with more detail. Thank you, Edited April 21, 2017 by bdubrow Expanded on what's collected and purpose, plus added links to EULA/Privacy policy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloquat Posted April 21, 2017 Author ID:1119043 Share Posted April 21, 2017 @nikhils Thank you for the clarification. I understand and have no problem of validating license, installation etc. I still have a question about hubble.cosmos calls, why does it need to call out every time I run an application? I just did a test with a few files and watched my dns request to hubble.cosmos, matched perfectly, every time I launched an app, it made a request. Any reason why Malwarebytes needs to know what applications I am running? If this is some variation of web of trust.. not sure I trust such a service.. last I heard WOT was busted for not following their own philosophy/practices. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
exile360 Posted April 21, 2017 ID:1119047 Share Posted April 21, 2017 No, it's nothing like WOT. Basically it's important for us to know what OS the software is installed on and what AV (if any) the system has installed. The reason we want to know this info is for testing and compatibility. For example, if we were to discover that the majority of our users are running Windows 8.1 it would be important for us to prioritize testing on that operating system as well as fixes for issues that impact that operating system. If we discovered that most of our users are running Malwarebytes alongside Norton Antivirus products then we'd prioritize fixing any issues that might exist which are specific to compatibility with Norton. Things like that, basically. It helps us to know the environment where Malwarebytes is running so that we know how best to spend more of our time on fixes and testing internally. I hope that helps to clear things up. Also, while we do collect such system-specific info, we do NOT collect any identifiable info like your IP address etc. because we do not want to track specific users or anything like that because frankly, that would make our software spyware which is something we're absolutely against (we'd have to start detecting ourselves as PUP if we ever did anything like that ). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloquat Posted April 21, 2017 Author ID:1119063 Share Posted April 21, 2017 @exile360 Thank you for the additional info. Glad to hear it isn't like WOT. Personally speaking, I would still like to see such gathering of data/product improvement as an option or way to turn it off completely if already opted in by default install. I would like to believe that companies would listen and reach out to their customers about product improvement and try to gather such info without explicit consent. Not saying having such data is a bad thing, just how it's gathered can raise concerns. I am just wary of having to give out more user info than necessary.. *ahem* Microsoft... not everything a user does is about product improvement. If that was the case, just follow twitter or facebook. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
exile360 Posted April 22, 2017 ID:1119104 Share Posted April 22, 2017 I agree with your assessment. I'll recommend to the product team that all telemetry data be optional and that we provide a means to turn all of it off for users/customers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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