Malwarebytes

Gers

Morning - just run a scan and malwarebytes found nine 'potential threats' - mostly called PUP.Optional.Tivo or PUP.Optional.GlobalUpdate

They are now removed, but are they really a threat? What can they do?

I have an anti-virus installed (Avast) is this not good enough to stop these things?

Or am I worrying too much?

Advice really appreciated - geeky OH away working!

Stompa

Take a look here:

https://support.malwarebytes.org/customer/portal/articles/1834873-what-are-pup-detections-are-they-threats-and-should-they-be-deleted-?b_id=6438

Gillor

As I recall Avast offers PUP protection but it’s turned off by default so you need to switch it on in each of the three detection shields..

AndyPix

PUP's are potentially unwanted programs.

Although they are not viruses ie they do not harm your computer or make copies of them selves,
they may have unwanted behaviour

This usually takes the form of showing you adverts where there were none before, like on your desktop, or via loads of popups ..

They usually take the form of something that you think you want .. such as registry cleaners or media codecs ..

Let malwarebytes remove them.

Your antivirus wont flag them - as they are not viruses

Hope this helps

(Well done for being vigilant and actually running malwarebytes)

Andy

Gers

Stompa wrote: »

Take a look here:

https://support.malwarebytes.org/customer/portal/articles/1834873-what-are-pup-detections-are-they-threats-and-should-they-be-deleted-?b_id=6438

Thanks - I used to wonder about the difference between 'quarantine' and 'delete' (not the meaning of the words but the actions). The update version only offers delete.

Gillor wrote: »

As I recall Avast offers PUP protection but it’s turned off by default so you need to switch it on in each of the three detection shields..

Done that - thanks.

AndyPix wrote: »

PUP's are potentially unwanted programs.

Although they are not viruses ie they do not harm your computer or make copies of them selves,
they may have unwanted behaviour

This usually takes the form of showing you adverts where there were none before, like on your desktop, or via loads of popups ..

They usually take the form of something that you think you want .. such as registry cleaners or media codecs ..

Let malwarebytes remove them.

Your antivirus wont flag them - as they are not viruses

Hope this helps

(Well done for being vigilant and actually running malwarebytes)

Andy

Great info - thanks. At least I'm reassured now. The laptop should be tighter than a duck's behind so these thing rankled. I don't get pop ups or strange adverts on the desktop, only (annoyingly) in Outlook.

Cheers folks, you've made this woman much happier.

:T

kwikbreaks

AndyPix wrote: »

(Well done for being vigilant and actually running malwarebytes)

Real vigilance is spotting the unwanted installs in the first place - these things turn up as add-on installs to stuff like java and flash plus lots of other freeware stuff. You usually (but not always) get the option to reject the installs. I find the sneaky way they get on your PC very annoying.

I'm fairly sure mine's clean but this thread pushed me into re-scanning which prompted an update of more than the database. I remembered that even Malwarebytes tries to get you to install the premium free trial. You need eyes in your ......

GunJack

ciaccino wrote: »

Malwarebytes is useless. My laptop runs faster after I've unistalled it.

either you had the Pro version (very minor system impact on every system I've seen it on and were just unlucky) or it wasn't actually MBAM.....

AndyPix

You don't need to keep it installed ..

Install it
run it
uninstall it

For what its worth, I have never seen mbam have an impact on performance.
And I must have used it on 1000s of systems

Andy

kwikbreaks

kwikbreaks wrote: »

I'm fairly sure mine's clean

It wasn't.

MB found BrowserStudio which according to the install info had been on PC since November. It installs browser extensions and I had none so either it was never activated or I saw the extension and blew it off. I simply don't recall it at all and have no idea what it was that it came with although MiniTool Partition Wizard was also installed November - I didn't think to check before I uninstalled BrowserStudio so can't be sure it was the same day.

Machine at home clean.

GunJack

AndyPix wrote: »

Install it
run it
uninstall it
Andy

Why on earth would you keep doing this?? MBAM doesn't run unless you run it, it sits there doing no harm to anything. Leave it installed and just update definitions before next use (new prog versions come through this update route also, so even more reason to just leave it installed

AndyPix

GunJack wrote: »

Why on earth would you keep doing this?? MBAM doesn't run unless you run it, it sits there doing no harm to anything. Leave it installed and just update definitions before next use (new prog versions come through this update route also, so even more reason to just leave it installed

I leave it installed on my own machine of course ..

But when im using it as a tool to remove some stuff from someone elses machine, I tidy up after myself.
I don't leave my tools all over the floor.

My mum would shout at me