Malwarebytes started flagging files that are 9+ yrs old

[Daddio25]

I've got two files on my laptop that are 9+ years old that Malwarebytes started flagging about a week ago.  Thoughts on why?  Been okay to that point.

[Porthos]

2 hours ago, Daddio25 said:

I've got two files on my laptop that are 9+ years old that Malwarebytes started flagging about a week ago.  Thoughts on why?  Been okay to that point.

Please post the log showing the detection's.

[AdvancedSetup]

Hello @Daddio25

Can you please post the log showing the detection?

 

You can find Scan and Protection logs within the Malwarebytes 4 program in the following location

 

 

RTP stands for Real-Time Protection and is where automatic protection operations would normally be logged

 

 

If you click on the View option you should get something similar to the following with other options available.

 

 

Thank you

 

 

 

[Daddio25]

Here is the log from this morning.

2021 11 16 - Malwarebytes detection log.txt

[Porthos]

15 minutes ago, Daddio25 said:

Here is the log from this morning.

That old version is flagged as a PUP Open Candy by many vendors as well.

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/0b3911c78324d5c00c195909f289d8615638c9d3f1162bc57c6c780ecb660656?nocache=1

 

[Porthos]

Windows Defender also flagged it as well.

[AdvancedSetup]

OpenCandy is a known bad PUA (Possibly Unwanted Application) that often comes bundled with software installers.

 

[Daddio25]

I understand that there may be some things in these files that I don't want on my machine.  The question is why they were not flagged before.  They have been on my laptop for 3 years.  Why only start flagging them a few weeks ago?  Just seems odd to me.

[AdvancedSetup]

Often it's due to new or enhanced rules being created. You may not have the actual full installation of this OpenCandy but you may have a registry entry or left over orphaned file and this new rule sees it and calls it out.

All antivirus works similar and is expected behavior to some degree. Sometimes this can actually also cause a false positive as well so there is always an ongoing complexity to finding what is an actual threat vs what is no vs potential false positive.

I hope that answers you question for you

Thank you