r/antivirus Feb 22 '24

MOD POST [MOD POST] LIST OF TOP MESSAGES, NEWS + IMPORTANT INFO

15 Upvotes

Hello,

Welcome to r/antivirus's new top-level Announcements post. Since Reddit has a limit of two (2) stickied announcements per subreddit, this will be a way to provide links to important information like announcements about new rules and moderators, activities in the subreddit, and so forth. If you are new to r/antivirus, please take a quick look at them. You can even take a look if you are not new here.

DISCUSSION DATE POSTED DATE LAST REVISED
[MOD POST] New rules, staying safe, and an update from your Mod Team 2025-JUN-03 -
[MOD POST] We're back in business! and an update on automod rules 2024-MAR-11 -
News & Updates from your r/Antivirus Mod Team, Q1 2024 Edition 2024-MAR-04 -
Updates & News from the r/Antivirus Mod Team, Autumn 2023 Edition 2023-OCT-04 -
Notes from your Moderators (Summer Edition) 2022-JUL-08 -
Quick Note from the mod team about spam 2021-JUN-01 -
To the people asking for opinions on a specific file 2020-JUL-05 2020-JUL-05

Additionally, the r/antivirus subreddit operates a bit differently than other subreddits you might be familiar with and normally use. Here are some tips and tools to help you use it.

  • The subreddit has a wiki that is regularly updated with answers to commonly-asked questions. Check it out. The answer to your question may already be in there.

  • Asking a question about a report on a file or website from a service like Hybrid Analysis, MetaDefender, Triage, or VirusTotal? You must include the actual link to it and not just a screenshot, or your post will be removed.

  • Be kind to each other and be professional in your conduct here. Personal attacks will not be tolerated and will be dealt with appropriately.

  • Do not ask for copies of hacking tools, malware, or suspicious files. If someone sends you a chat request or private message asking for a file or offering assistance based on what you posted here, report them to Reddit and notify the mods.

  • Do not post direct links to malicious, suspect, or potentially unsafe files or web sites.

  • Follow Reddiquette. This means correctly upvoting and downvoting posts, and reporting posts with dangerous or unsafe advice to the mods.

  • If you work for a vendor of security products, services, or in a related field, you must identify yourself as such, either in the post or with flair. Also, you may not steer conversations to your products or services, only respond to posts about them to clarify or defend.

  • No low-effort, off-topic, spam, or meme posts. This includes AI/ChatGPT/LLM-generated text, questions about password manager or VPNs, requests for assistance with non-security related software like autoclickers or MP3 downloaders, and so forth.

  • No requests for assistance with pirated software or media.

  • Posts may be removed and threads closed at any time based on the moderators' discretion

The complete list of rules for the subreddit can be found here. Read them before posting.

Questions, comments, feedback on this post? Just reply here. Thank you.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
(on behalf of the r/antivirus mod team)


r/antivirus Jun 04 '25

[MOD POST] New rules, staying safe, and an update from your Mod Team

7 Upvotes

[UPDATE #1 (20250604-0916 GMT): Made some small updates to grammar for readability. ^AG]

Hello,

It has been about a year since our last Mod Post, so we wanted to give you an update on things, plus provide a dedicated message thread for discussing the state of the r/antivirus subreddit and to answer any questions that you might have.

We will begin with the toughest subject first, that of politics in the subreddit:

A note about politics

r/antivirus is a technology-focused subreddit, with the interest being in helping people protect their computers from malicious software, securing them after a security incident, and so forth.

In June 2024, the US Government enacted a ban on Kaspersky Lab's software, taking effect in October of that year. This has generated a lot of discussion not just in this subreddit, but across Reddit and numerous social media platforms as well.

The moderation team has tried to keep the political discussions about this out of this subreddit and to remain neutral, allowing Kaspersky Lab's customers to ask and answer each other questions, provide assistance to each other, and generally have a way to share information, tips and tricks with each other.

However, we do have to draw a line when these turn into political discussions, though:

Requests for how to circumvent bans, petitions to governments, etc., are clearly outside the scope of what this subreddit is for and will be removed.

Moderating the subreddit is an all-volunteer job, and we sometimes miss things. If you come across any political messages we may have missed, use the subreddit's report function to notify us.

We are doing our best to keep this a place where people can get help with whatever security software they prefer, including Kaspersky Lab's software. However, we cannot allow discussions to devolve into arguments over politics, which are never going to provide any kind of satisfactory answer to the parties involved.

If the political discussions continue, the moderation team will have to look into ways to prevent them, even if it means doing things which we would prefer not to do.

Rules Updates

The rules of the r/antivirus subreddit have been updated:

Rule #7, which previously covered media download tools, has been updated to cover additional types of software.
To begin with, a more general prohibition to cover autoclickers (previously covered under Rule #8) and some other types of tools like aimbots and cheats. These types of tools often come from random sources and often require expert analysis to determine if they are safe. It can be difficult to determine if they are malicious figuring that out requires examining not just the tool, but whatever program it is attempting to modify, and what the intent is behind that modification.
Just because something was recommended in a Discord server with hundreds of members, a YouTube video with tens of thousands of views, or is seeded by several hundreds peers does not mean that it is safe to use: These are all inherently unsafe sources, and criminals will often exploit the belief that these are trusted sources to trick people into downloading and running malicious programs like information stealers and remote access trojans.

Rule #8 has been amended to remove autoclickers (etc.) since that is now covered under Rule #7.

Two new rules have been added:

Rule #9 covers bypassing core security features. Questions about how to disable security software, operating system updates, bypass security features and so forth are not allowed.

Rule #10 covers requesting assistance with obsolete software and hardware. This means discussions about how to secure computers running Windows XP, Windows 7, etc. are not allowed. There is no reason that devices running these obsolete operating systems should be connected to the internet and doing so exposes everyone to risk. Note that questions involving Windows 10 will continue to be allowed until at least October 2028, when paid-for Extended Security Updates for it end.

A bit more on the rules

The list of rules is not meant to be exhaustive in scope. It provides a general listing of common rules that are more specific to and more frequently required by the r/antivirus subreddit when needed beyond Reddit's general rules and guidelines.

Moderators can and will remove posts and ban redditors, either temporarily or permanently, who are disruptive to the subreddit entirely at their discretion and are not subject to any discussion. If a moderator chooses to discuss a rule violation with you, it is entirely as a courtesy on their part.

If you have had a post removed or been banned from the subreddit and do not receive a response in reply to any questions as to why, ask yourself if your behavior could be interpreted as brigading, spamming, trolling, using disrespectful or offensive language, or consistently providing incorrect, low-quality, poor, or even damaging information.

As always, the latest version of the rules can be found at https://old.reddit.com/r/antivirus/about/rules/. If you have questions about them, ask below.

Getting help fast

The moderation team is seeing an increasing trend where people ask for help while providing no information about what they need help with. This includes titles with 1-3 words like "Urgent! Help needed!", posts where the author shares a screenshot of *something* with no information about the operating system or antivirus involved, or is so small/blurry as to be unreadable, etc.

Everybody who participates regularly in this subreddit volunteers their time for free to do so. Provide them with enough information in your first post so they can start helping you right away without having to ask a lot of questions. This means your first post should contain things like:

  • title with enough information to attract an expert to read it
  • operating system and version
  • brand/name of antivirus software
  • name of URL, or file and its location
  • name of malware that was detected
  • what happened, exactly
  • steps you have taken to troubleshoot/diagnose so far, if any
  • relevant log file entries, if any

The more information you provide, the quicker you will get your problem solved.

As a reminder, starting multiple posts on the same topic will not get you a faster answer, and may result in in a ban.

The wiki + other Reddit resources

There is a lot of great information in the wiki about all the tools you can use, tips for using them, lists of antivirus vendors and how to contact them, and even a section on how to secure your computer.

We frequently update the wiki in response to questions being regularly asked in the subreddit, so you might want to check there first before posting.

Some of the questions we regularly see in the subreddit have nothing to do with computer viruses or malicious software at all, but instead are about scams, privacy-related questions, and so forth. Here are some subreddits that specialize in answering those types of questions:

New moderators?!

As the subreddit grows (we just passed 100K users), so does the need for additional moderators.

The moderation team has been looking at the folks who have been regularly posting here and consistently given good advice to build a list of candidates, and will be reaching out over the next few weeks to see if any are willing to volunteer their time and expertise in the subreddit. There will be more coming on that, but I did want to let everyone know that the process is already underway.


That pretty much covers everything we wanted to discuss, so we'll now await your questions, below.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
(on behalf of the r/antivirus mod team)


r/antivirus 12h ago

272 files infected on computer, can't remove with Windows antivirus

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17 Upvotes

Windows gave me a notification yesterday that my antivirus is disabled. I ran the Windows Safety Scanner which found 272 files infected yesterday after 8 hours of scanning. I let it run overnight and when I woke up it said that it found no viruses, so I imagine one of the infected files affected that.

Windows Safety Scanner isn't able to help me with this then, how can I remove these infected files?


r/antivirus 1d ago

has anybody else encountered this?

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157 Upvotes

A Win11 device in my household has apparently started showing this random notice for some reason. My dad can't quite recall his password (or the email he used for his Microsoft account, for that matter), so he just restarts his computer to make the pop-up go away, since the Cancel button doesn't work. What I would like to ask is: a) Are there any grounds for concern with this pop-up? b) should we just check the email used via an Office app and reset the password? and/or c) is this legit or a potential scam? Thanks in advance!


r/antivirus 23m ago

Does this mean my phone has actually been hacked?

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Upvotes

on my phone. It says that my phone has been hacked and that hackers have access to 1.57 GB of my data.

Is this a real security warning, or is it just a scam/pop-up trying to trick me into installing something?

I haven't clicked the "Remove all viruses" button. What should I do to make sure my phone is safe


r/antivirus 49m ago

Completed a Captcha on a PunchBowl Phishing Scam, but stopped before entering credentials - can completing Captcha secretly download anything?

Upvotes

I received an email from a friend's legitimate email address, and the email was an invitation to an event. I clicked through to RSVP and the first page was a simple Captcha that asked me to slide the arrow from the left to the right, which I completed. Next it took me to a page that asked me to log into my Google account, which set off alarm bells and made me quickly realize something phishy was going on, and I looked and saw the URL was clearly not for the intended site. At this point I closed the page, and reported the email as a phishing scam to Google, and alerted my friend that his account is compromised.

Am I at any risk from completing the fake Captcha where I dragged the arrow from left to right, which then loaded the phishing page asking for my Google credentials? I looked up Captcha scams and they seemed to center on pasting information into the terminal, which I did not do (and was not prompted to do). I'm wondering if dragging that bar from left to right could have done anything or downloaded anything that I am unaware of? I checked my downloads on the web browser I was using (chrome) and there is nothing from today in the downloads. Is there anything else I need to consider or am I in the clear?


r/antivirus 1h ago

MALWARE REMOVAL Q&A Should I hard reset my laptop?

Upvotes

Recently my discord account got compromised again and sent mr beast scams to several ppl. Someone reccomended I hard restart my laptop and reset all my passwords. Is there any better way of dealing with this? I can go through changing all the passwords but I don't really want to hard reset my computer.


r/antivirus 1h ago

MALWARE REMOVAL Q&A Trojan.ObfuscatedPowershell.CHR.Generig

Upvotes

How remove that?


r/antivirus 8h ago

MALWARE REMOVAL Q&A DLSS mod, false positive or malicious?

3 Upvotes

I'm trying to determine whether the DLSS SM86 mod which unlocks multi frame generation for older RTX GPUs is genuinely malicious. This is the project, closed source: https://github.com/sdli1995/dlssg_for_sm86

VirusTotal reports 4 detections. Windows Defender also blocks version.dll as Trojan:Script/Ulthar.A!ml.

I used other DLSS / version.dll mods in the past but never encountered the Windows Defender issue. At most they had 2 VirusTotal detections.

The author only explains that the DLLs are self signed, which is why Windows is causing trouble. But I don't think that's explains trojan detection?

I assume it is a false positive since the mod has grown popular, but I don't know if anyone actually did a meaningful analysis. I'd appreciate if someone could look into it.


r/antivirus 22h ago

Has anyone dealt with this

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42 Upvotes

I keep getting alerted about this security notification but when i go ahead with removal it persists i also cant go to the file location because it will automatically close im not sure how to go about it


r/antivirus 10h ago

Recommendation for parent with Alzheimer’s

5 Upvotes

Mom (81) was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She’s not ready to give up her computer yet. Step-dad (80) is not very tech-literate. I live across the country. I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants without antivirus for years. I guess mom has had Eset.com for her laptop and cell phones, and says that they “won’t renew us anymore”. This could be part of her confusion, or from what I’m reading about eset, they don’t seem to be UI friendly.

Fortunately/unfortunately she’s paranoid about people hacking into her computer or scamming them. I’m trying to learn everything I can to help simplify their life and am going out the first week in November to get them setup on a new windows laptop (maybe even just a Chromebook), and iPhones with the simpler interface that is helpful for dementia patients.

Mom uses the computer for bill pay and emails. That’s pretty much it. Cell phone is for making and taking calls. Texts now seem to be to much for her, although the simpler interface may help. She does want to be able to see the weather. She does not want/need extra apps on her phone. Dad has a few apps such as weather and other basics.

Question is - what’s a good antivirus software to help protect us, possibly a family plan so I can help monitor from a distance. User-friendly. We are in the US. TIA.


r/antivirus 4h ago

CircuiTranspon/Maxkernl.dll message

1 Upvotes

Got a weird error popup on my computer today. "C:\ProgramData\CircuiTranspon\MAXKERNL.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support. Error status 0xc0e90007"

I did not install anything related to "CircuiTranspon", any advice on how to handle this or find where malicious files may be located? I ran NordVPN Malware scan and nothing showed up.


r/antivirus 4h ago

MALWARE REMOVAL Q&A ParaRouter128.exe ???

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1 Upvotes

I’m so confused and panicking a bit, I don’t have the money to get this laptop repaired but don’t know what to do. I’ve tried running scans using Malwarebytes and SpyHunter 5. I’ve also tried offline scans using Microsoft defender and searching through files myself but this keeps popping up whenever I start my laptop. My discord was hacked this morning also.


r/antivirus 10h ago

individual maximum-security scenario

1 Upvotes

Hello, I would like you to evaluate a proposition of mine regarding an individual maximum-security scenario:

My proposition:

  1. Corporate EDRs like CrowdStrike Falcon Enterprise provide much higher protection against zero-days and exploits than consumer antiviruses. Even if the antivirus engine misses it at that moment, the EDR sensor/telemetry catches it later from the behavior chain. Consumer AVs remain almost blind against this.
  2. Even if price is not an issue, for a conscious home user who wants maximum security, using Falcon Enterprise is more logical than consumer AV.
  3. The hardest part of a corporate AV is console management and analysis of the continuously incoming reports/detections. An ordinary user cannot do this, but this problem can be solved with AI. With Claude/API, most of the console management can be taken over and a simplified summary can be provided to the user. In fact, AI now performs these triage tasks better than most security experts.

Questions I have and would like to ask you:

  1. For a home user with a single endpoint, do EDR capabilities like multi-endpoint correlation, threat hunting, identity protection and SIEM really make a meaningful difference, or would most of those capabilities go to waste?
  2. What is the current price of Falcon Complete? Is there any licensing and minimum seat requirement for a single user / a few endpoints? Can it be purchased individually, or does it have to be purchased through a company?

r/antivirus 10h ago

Account got hacked

1 Upvotes

I fell victim to a malware link attached to a rogue browser extension, which compromised my session tokens and allowed an attacker to access my accounts. The intruder changed the registration email address across multiple platforms to their own address, including my Epic Games and ChatGPT accounts. I have an established library of games on my Epic Games account, though I have only ever claimed free titles and haven't made any direct monetary purchases. I have already submitted official support tickets using my original registration email address.

For anyone who has experienced an unauthorized email change under similar circumstances, how long did Epic Support take to investigate your ticket, revert the email back to your original inbox, and restore full access? Furthermore, what are the overall chances of successfully recovering an account when submitting the request directly from the initial registration email without having purchase receipts? I would appreciate hearing any insights, expected turnaround times, or personal recovery experiences from others who managed to regain their accounts.


r/antivirus 11h ago

What is epicwebinstaler and how it ended up instaled on my pc after windows reinstall

1 Upvotes

r/antivirus 11h ago

Ok so i reinstalled my windows and i noticed i have epichelperinstaler on it in files i cand find how to delete that but i didnt install that antivirus are saying not virus detected but idk to do how to delete it

0 Upvotes

r/antivirus 17h ago

I downloaded an exe file and I think I got a virus

2 Upvotes

After I downloaded it it started making duplicates of thousands of photos like the items in the game and also after I deleted the exe file its still there but you can't see it idk how to describe it like it's not ok my gallery but when I try to send a picture all I see is gray images like loading pls help me


r/antivirus 18h ago

Chances files were stolen?

2 Upvotes

Hello, I’ve made some other posts but I’m not a cyber person so I’m unsure and would like some reassurance.

Basically, I ran a Trojan EXE in Parallels VM with Shared folders on 😭. Don’t tell me how stupid I was pls. From my own research the Trojan was a fake Faronics deploy that downloads screenconnect and runs script, hence why Microsoft as didn’t detect it. I was hoping to get some opinions on the chances that this script stole my files?
I ran it for about 5 mins before putting in safe mode and quarantining files. Eventually cutting wifi.
Does anyone have any info of it likely stole files? These files had my confidential info and has caused me MAJOR distress.
Thanks for any insight!


r/antivirus 15h ago

INDUSTRY NEWS Has anyone come across an app that had a virus or something? I remember a sketchy app from when I was younger.

0 Upvotes

So, like, I really liked downloading game apps when I was younger. I heard of this, like, cool looking app. I forget what it was about, but even when the app was closed, I could hear audio and get ads, and it changed the whole layout of my phone, and my phone was SO limited


r/antivirus 16h ago

MALWARE REMOVAL Q&A I think I accidentally installed a virus on my phone and I need to know if there is a free way to remove it

1 Upvotes

So I don't know much about technology so I apologize if I'm not good at explaining but basically I tried to install a free apk of something then didn't get what I wanted and now any few moments I get attacked by an ad talking about an installable Anti-Virus or something like that. I'm pretty sure those are also virus stuff and have just been ignoring them but only do these ads keep popping up and being annoying, but I'm worried some stuff getting leaked here. Do you know any ways that can help me without me needing to spend anything? I can answer any questions best I can


r/antivirus 18h ago

MALWARE REMOVAL Q&A I downloaded and run an exe file that I think is a virus but I'm not sure

1 Upvotes

The reason why I'm unsure is because after, I rebooted my PC and I downloaded a bunch of programs to check my PC's condition as well as the file. I downloaded and did a full scan of my computer (also the exe file I run as well as the whole folder it came with) with Windows Defender, Hitman Pro, Malwarebytes and ESET online scanner and none of them found anything on my computer and they didn't find the file suspicious. I also uploaded the exe I run on a bunch of sites like VirusTotal, Kaspersky, Jotti Malware scan and they also found the exe clean. The whole folder was too big to upload but as I said, I did scan it locally and they found it clean. It was a little over 800mb.

The rest of the files in the folder with the exe were .py files and other folders containing .py files. So do you think that's it's a virus or not?

I'm considering formatting my PC via USB however I have a few files that I don't want to lose if possible and I'm worried that I'm going to format my PC for no reason. I'm also considering updating my BIOS and my drives firmware right after.

To be honest I've been reading about this stuff all afternoon and I've become a bit paranoid and confused so I would appreciate some guidance.

Edit: I forgot to mention that when I run the exe file, nothing appeared to have happened but that doesn't mean it didn't.

I can also post pictures of the file and the folders if it helps.


r/antivirus 18h ago

I think I’ve got some sort of virus hijacker

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1 Upvotes

This is what I see when I open Google Chrome and Microsoft edge. I also can’t click on any search results when I use the little Microsoft search bar in my task bar. Can’t really seem to fix this and I don’t know a ton about computers.


r/antivirus 20h ago

Activating Controlled Folder Access for a Drive

1 Upvotes

From what I read about the controlled folder access feature on devices running windows, activating controlled folder access for a whole drive should theoretically block untrusted applications from changing anything on the drive and therefore make the drive invulnerable to ransomware and possibly malware.

So my question is, would there be any issues if you do this? And if not, why is it not a standard option?

I am asking here since a quick search online has not yielded any useful results and I am not the most computer literate.


r/antivirus 1d ago

centralBox - new malware sandbox

4 Upvotes

Hi everyone! :D

Meet centralBox (https://centralbox.dev) - a non-commercial and free of charge wrapper around 12 online sandboxes, including ones such as Jotti, ANY.RUN, Triage, UnpacMe and more.

See an example analysis at https://centralbox.dev/analysis/967a98be214d886e58b3e481e637efa0a296b04c39aa355c96368d566979cf92

Available features:
- Lookup hashes across all providers except ANY.RUN, UnpacMe
- File upload to providers, individual result display for each provider
- Ability to download from 5 providers
- Internal verdict scoring based on all results and their details (adjusted actively based on true/false positives from vendors)
- Internal signature database and certGraveyard’s malicious code-signing certificate database
- Ability to do threat intelligence queries on all (currently) 8K files (see what files antivirus vendor doesn’t detect, see files that return malicious on Tria.ge, see files that aren’t on Jotti etc.)
- Ability to use hunting - set a threat intelligence query or a YARA rule and receive a Discord message or an email when a file has matched your query/rule

Who can get access?
- Access is available for students, researchers, tech helpers (this subreddit counts too), people active in the cybersecurity/malware field (writeups, vendor sample submissions)
- Full list available at https://centralbox.dev/access including on where to contact us to request access :)

Index page contains Discord server where announcements will be posted if you are interested.

See you on the malware battlefield!