Security Advisor Warning Returns After Being Dismissed in MB v4.4.10

[lmacri]

I have an issue dismissing a Security Advisor warning when automatic Malwarebytes application updates are disabled.

After Malwarebytes Premium updated to v4.4.10 the Security Advisor warned that I didn't have automatic product updates enabled (note that I always have General | Application Updates | Automatically Download and Install Updates turned off so I can choose when application updates are installed; my malware database definitions are set to automatically update every 3 hours).  However, I was able to dismiss that warning so that my dashboard showed a green status and reported I was fully protected.

I updated to v4.4.11 on 19-Nov-2021 and recently noticed that my dashboard once again says I'm not fully protected.  Now when I view the Security Advisor details there doesn't seem to be any way to dismiss the warning to turn on application updates again. I toggled the switch at General | Application Updates | Automatically Download and Install Updates to ON (which cleared the warning) and toggled that setting back OFF again (which reinstated the "you're not fully protected" warning shown below) and I still can't see a way to dismiss that Security Advisor warning.

Has there been a recent change in Malwarebytes Premium v4.4.11 that now prevents users from dismissing the Security Advisor warning if automatic application updates are disabled?

mbst-grab-results.zip

-----------
64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H1 build 19043.1348 * Firefox v94.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v.4.18.2110.6-1.1.18700.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.4.11.149-1.0.1513
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

[Porthos]

 

3 hours ago, lmacri said:

I have an issue dismissing a Security Advisor warning when automatic Malwarebytes application updates are disabled.

Click the little X carefully not the turn off link.

If that does not work in your version it does for me in the 4.5 beta.

[lmacri]

2 hours ago, Porthos said:

Click the little X carefully not the turn off link....

Hi Porthos:

Yes, that worked.  After I clicked the small "x" next to the "Turn on" link I was back to green status and Security Advisor reported "Everything looks great" ...

... and now I can click the "Show dismissed items" link again to confirm that my automatic application updates are the feature generating the warning (and are still turned off in my Malwarebytes settings).

Thanks for the suggestion.  I would have never thought to click that small "x" to dismiss a warning. Dismissing warnings was much more intuitive in earlier versions of Security Advisor (I seem to recall there used to be an obvious link labelled "Dismiss" the first time I turned off this warning for automatic application updates, although I might be wrong about that).
-----------
64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H1 build 19043.1348 * Firefox v94.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v.4.18.2110.6-1.1.18700.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.4.11.149-1.0.1513
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

Edited December 5, 2021 by lmacri

[Porthos]

10 minutes ago, lmacri said:

Dismissing warnings was much more intuitive in earlier versions of Security Advisor

The Idea is not to be easy or very obvious to disable security recommendations for the normal user.

Yes it sucks for the non average (advanced) user that likes to do everything manually.

It is to actually protect the normal user.

 

[lmacri]

16 hours ago, Porthos said:

The Idea is not to be easy or very obvious to disable security recommendations for the normal user.  Yes it sucks for the non average (advanced) user that likes to do everything manually. It is to actually protect the normal user.

Hi Porthos:

If that's true then I personally don't like the idea the software developers are deliberately making the interface less intuitive and user-friendly just to try and prevent us "non-experts" from dismissing warnings in the new Security Advisor (which frankly sounds a bit patronizing).  Regardless of their level of technical expertise, I imagine that most users who have turned off automatic application updates at Settings | General | Application Updates | Automatically Download and Install Updates did so because they want to wait until a larger pool of early adopters have tested the latest application update and that no new bugs are reported that weren't caught during beta testing.  Those users probably don't want to be warned that automatic application updates are disabled every time they open their Malwarebytes dashboard, and I still feel that disabling warnings in Security Advisor should be more intuitive.

Why not just show users a pop-up explaining the risk of disabling the Security Advisor warning and let users decide for themselves if they want to dismiss the warning or proceed with the fix?
-----------
64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H1 build 19043.1348 * Firefox v94.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v.4.18.2110.6-1.1.18700.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.4.11.149-1.0.1513
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

[Katerina]

Hi Imacri,
Thank you for you feedback. I believe you might see the warning again after the updates b/c the item was dismissed only for 30 days. It is the current logic. However, to improve the experience for the advanced users, it will be allowed to dismiss items you don't want to be warned about indefinitely (this is the improvement our team currently working on). 

[lmacri]

5 hours ago, Katerina said:

... I believe you might see the warning again after the updates b/c the item was dismissed only for 30 days. It is the current logic. However, to improve the experience for the advanced users, it will be allowed to dismiss items you don't want to be warned about indefinitely (this is the improvement our team currently working on). 

Hi Katerina:

Yes, that 30-day reminder would explain what I observed.  I updated to Malwarebytes 4.4.10.144-1.0.1499 on 05-Nov-2021, which is about the same time that I first dismissed the Security Advisor warning that my automatic application updates were turned off. I first noticed that "Careful, you're not fully protected" warning again last Thursday (02-Dec-2021) or Friday (03-Dec-2021), so it was likely the 30-day reminder, and not my update to Malwarebytes 4.4.11.149-1.0.1513 on 19-Nov-2021, that triggered the warning.

Thanks for letting me know that users will be warned again after 30 days if a Security Advisor warning is still dismissed and has not been "fixed".  It's good to know that users will be allowed to dismiss these warnings indefinitely in a future release, since I'm unlikely to turn on automatic application updates again just to clear these repeated Security Advisor warnings.

EDIT:

I've revised the title of this thread now that I know the reason why my Security Advisor warning reappeared a few days ago.  Hopefully that will help other users encountering the same problem.
-----------
64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H1 build 19043.1348 * Firefox v94.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v.4.18.2110.6-1.1.18700.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.4.11.149-1.0.1513
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

Edited December 7, 2021 by lmacri
Comment added RE: thread title

[lmacri]

On 12/7/2021 at 3:37 AM, Katerina said:

... Thank you for you feedback. I believe you might see the warning again after the updates b/c the item was dismissed only for 30 days. It is the current logic. However, to improve the experience for the advanced users, it will be allowed to dismiss items you don't want to be warned about indefinitely (this is the improvement our team currently working on). 

Hi @Katerina :

Do you know if Malwarebytes still plans to allow users to dismiss Security Advisor warning(s) indefinitely?  Also, is the maximum time allowed to dismiss these warnings still 30 days, or has there been a change in the current logic so that dismissed warnings are now automatically re-enabled after every product update?

I updated to Malwarebytes v4.5.5 (rel. 02-Mar-2022) today and discovered that Security Advisor was once again warning that my product is not fully protected because I have turned off automatic product updates and tamper protection in my Malwarebytes settings.  I was able to dismiss those warnings again (for the umpteenth time 🙂) thanks to Porthos' instructions <above> but it's very frustrating to have to keep doing this.

-----------
64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H2 build 19044.1526 * Firefox v97.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2201.10-1.1.18900.3 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.5.5.175-1.0.1621
 Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

Edited March 3, 2022 by lmacri

[Katerina]

Hi Imacri,
We released the functionality which allows to dismiss settings indefinitely in the mid of January 2022 so your dismissed recommendations should remain in dismissed list. 

Regarding your suggestion, dismissed warnings are NOT re-enabled after product updates. We tried to reproduce it using different versions and did not detect any issues.
So, I believe everything should work properly on your end but please let us know if you will experience something similar again. Sorry for your frustration🙏

[lmacri]

On 3/4/2022 at 9:39 AM, Katerina said:

... We released the functionality which allows to dismiss settings indefinitely in the mid of January 2022 so your dismissed recommendations should remain in dismissed list....

Hi @Katerina :

There's been some progress with the latest MB v4.5.7, but the Security Advisor warning to enable automatic Malwarebytes application updates that I dismissed on 03-Mar-2022 didn't remain in the dismissed list. Sort of a good news, bad news story.🙂

Erix's 29-Mar-2022 change log <here> for MB v4.5.7 states in part "Fixed: Security Advisor shows incorrect status for non-RTP related issues".  Does that mean that MB Premium v4.5.7 is no longer going to report the "Careful, you're not fully protected" warning on the main interface unless an RTP feature (which I'm guessing means a real-time protection module like Web / Malware / Ransomware / Exploit Protection) is disabled?

As noted, the bad news is that I opened my MB Premium v4.5.6 this morning and saw yet another "Careful, you're not fully protected" warning.  When I checked the Security Advisor details I discovered that the warning to enable automatic Malwarebytes application updates was visible again, even though I dismissed that warning in v4.5.5 on 03-Mar-2022 as shown in the third image in my post <above>.

The good news is that I updated to MB Premium v4.5.7 about an hour later without making any other changes (i.e., I did not dismiss the Security Advisor warning by clicking the "x") and my interface now says I'm fully protected, even though the Security Advisor details still warn me that automatic Malwarebytes application updates are disabled.  If this is the new expected behaviour for Security Advisor, that's fine by me as long as the main interface doesn't repeatedly warn me ever 30 days that I'm "not fully protected" just for turning off automatic application updates.

-----------
64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H2 build 19044.1586 * Firefox v98.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2202.4-1.1.19000.8 * Malwarebytes Premium 4.5.7.186-1.0.1645
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

Edited March 30, 2022 by lmacri

[Katerina]

>Erix's 29-Mar-2022 change log <here> for MB v4.5.7 states in part "Fixed: Security Advisor shows incorrect status for non-RTP related issues".  Does that mean that MB Premium v4.5.7 is no longer going to report the "Careful, you're not fully protected" warning on the main interface unless an RTP feature (which I'm guessing means a real-time protection module like Web / Malware / Ransomware / Exploit Protection) is disabled?

Hi Imacri,
Yes, you are right, if RTP is on - the device shield will be green and you will see the message that other recommendations are available. 
+ regarding 30 days, once you dismissed the setting it should stay in dismissed setting list indefinitely unless you want to change it and remove from the list. 

As for the issue with the settings keep being visible again, let us try to reproduce it one more time🤔 I will let you know if there are any findings

Edited April 4, 2022 by Katerina
Corrected font issue