Questions about how virus scanners work, and other security things

[Porthos]

3 hours ago, Badran said:

I’m guessing that’s why it causes blue screens

It is rare but has happened in the past. It might not happen now as those reports were old.

Every computer is different.

[Badran]

Discovered that there’s a BIOS update that’s supposed to fix a potential security flaw for my processor, though it won’t be coming out until December due to the apparent performance decrease in older machines, so they’re still testing.

When it comes to potential security vulnerabilities in processors and such, can Malwarebytes help prevent that from happening?

[Badran]

Since I had this topic open, I figured it might be best to ask here, since I’m not sure if it’s a minor display bug or not.

When a scan finishes and you close the Malwarebytes window without dismissing the scan results, it’ll say the current time on the scan results as opposed to when it actually finishes.

For example, I run a scan at 12:42pm and when it finishes it’ll display that it finished at 12:43pm. I don’t dismiss the results screen and instead close the window. I reopen Malwarebytes at 1:37pm and when the window loads it’ll display the results screen of that scan that was run at 12:42pm except it will say it had finished at 1:37pm when that’s wrong.

Clicking the advanced details of the results will still show the correct time it started at.

Hopefully this makes sense and I’m not wording this poorly.

 

[Badran]

Recently discovered that the PUP domains blocklist was moved to custom in the ublock settings, if I’m not mistaken.

Maybe it’s related, but I’m wondering if it’s worth keeping?

[Porthos]

6 minutes ago, Badran said:

Recently discovered that the PUP domains blocklist was moved to custom in the ublock settings, if I’m not mistaken.

That is correct

[Badran]

Thanks. I was a bit confused why they decided to move it. I wonder if it’s still included if you were to download it for the first time.

Also think the RTP page isn’t showing the browser guard statistics properly again. I did update to 4.6.4, so maybe it’s been resolved, though I’ll have to wait until tomorrow since it updates on a daily basis.

[Badran]

RTP a browser guard stats still aren’t updating for some reason.

I also noticed that the definition updates have stopped, though I read a post about how everyone’s having that issue and it should be resolved by tomorrow

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, Badran said:

though I read a post about how everyone’s having that issue and it should be resolved by tomorrow

The team is working on it. No guarantee on when it will be fixed.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Porthos

[Badran]

I see.

I was originally going to submit logs, but I closed the support tool to check the forums first.

Something I noticed is that when I opened the support tool, it never downloaded FRST properly (it was a 5kb file for some reason) so I’m not sure if that’s also a publishing or server error. I’m lucky I never took logs, since it most maybe wouldn’t have worked properly since the tool was unable to download FRST.

[Badran]

Definition updates are working fine, but I think somethings wrong with the support tool atm as it’s apparently not downloading FRST properly.

I forgot I had the FRST folder still, so I was able to download it from bleeping computer, and uninstall it via renaming it to Uninstall.exe. Even after having it removed the support tool is unable to download it for some reason.

EDIT: forgot to attach an image of it.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Badran

[Badran]

I think I mentioned this before, but it’s still occurring so I’ll post again.

within the RTP section of the app, the browser guard statistics still won’t update, despite the fact that it has been blocking ads and trackers.

Dont know if it’s messed up again, or it’s on my end.

[Badran]

I forgot to add a picture, but here’s what it looks like in the app.

maybe it’s broke again?

[Badran]

I was wondering since the other day, but what does exploit protection protect against specifically?

Also the browser guard integration still isn’t displaying properly, and shows 0 like in the screenshot above. I suppose if I’m going to make a topic, I should do it today or tomorrow, since windows will update on Tuesday, since it’s every second Tuesday of the month iirc?

[1PW]

With little doubt, the exploit protection module (AE) in Malwarebytes for Windows Premium and in the stand-alone app MBAE Beta are the best defenses against exploit kits.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/threats/exploit-kits

[HexagonT]

@Badran Can you press Win + Shift + S to take screenshots please?

It will look much better.

Edited November 18, 2023 by HexagonT
Added "It will look much better."

[Badran]

I think edge had some update that forced itself to auto start on launch which is really annoying.

For some reason after restarting after turning that off my taskbar was freezing, and I have no idea why. I heard that you’ll maybe be able to uninstall it next year, which is great news for me because I really want to be rid of it

No idea if I broke something by turning off auto startup, since I never launch edge at all, and this is the first time I’ve done so in what feels like almost a year.

mbst-grab-results.zip

[Badran]

I was wondering if someone would be able to check these logs for me, as I’m wondering if I broke something because I was reconfiguring edge to not launch on startup, but after restarting things like my task bar froze for some reason, and I don’t understand why.

I hope I’ll be able to uninstall edge over here when they make those EU changes…

Edited December 3, 2023 by Badran

[Badran]

It’s been a week, since I had the PC on again, though it’s mainly because if my injury slowing me down.

Wondering if everything is okay, and if it’d be good to update my software before patch Tuesday?

Thank you

[Badran]

Ended up updating pretty much everything including my GPU driver on Friday or Saturday. Noticed that Firefox was running in the background on the first startup, so I don’t know what that was about or if that’s normal.

Im guessing I should be good to update tomorrow? (Assuming I even have time to get on the computer.)

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Badran

[Porthos]

3 minutes ago, Badran said:

Im guessing I should be good to update tomorrow?

Why wouldn't it be ok? You are too paranoid.

[Badran]

Ended up updating last week, I noticed after this windows update, it got rid of three programs?

no idea what.

Today I also cleared out and deleted a bunch of old files from my d drive. It was mainly a bunch of old research images for school projects and the like I saved from across the internet, but still had.

I was wondering, if a file you had was malicious, and you deleted it without opening it, would anything happen?

Not to say anything I had was malicious, since I’ve done a bunch of full scans with the Microsoft safety scanner and I assume that would pick them up, but I do get paranoid over not knowing much, and typically second guess myself in regards to this stuff.

[Porthos]

1 minute ago, Badran said:

I was wondering, if a file you had was malicious, and you deleted it without opening it, would anything happen?

No.

[Badran]

Was it patch Tuesday today?

Havent been keeping up with a lot, since I’ve not been home that much unfortunately

[David H. Lipman]

2 minutes ago, Badran said:

Was it patch Tuesday today?

Havent been keeping up with a lot, since I’ve not been home that much unfortunately

 

Yes.

 

[Badran]

So I updated windows and everything went fine, but I’m trying to download this security update, yet there’s an error and it won’t download. I’m wondering if it’s a server error on their part or not, or if anyone else is having this issue too?