- Apr 5, 2014
- 6,014
I do't think so they are weak against PUPs ,as I remember there is a feature in kaspersky it need to activated by your hand...
Kaspersky and PUP detection
- Thread starter Ahmed Uchiha
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Illegal (pirated) software in my opinion should be marked as Riskware cause many cracked games contain mining malware, ransomware, and spyware there is nothing for free also it puts the user at risk of a hack or anything like that Kaspersky one of the AVs that doesn't mark pirated software as Riskware.
Kaspersky my not good at detecting PUPs or Adware because it focuses on low false positives this means not flagging many PUP apps because they said in their license agreement (PUP apps) that they offer ads and the user agreed to this license.
- Feb 8, 2016
- 537
I disagree. Kaspersky's policy is fair. It is not true that all cracks contain mining and other things (the ones that do are detected by Kaspersky). It is useless, and it creates only problems to mark as malware something that is not.
I know that Kaspersky doesn't flag anything as malware unless they are sure it is malicious but these kind of files are suspicious I saw many YouTubers who got hacked because of using pirated editing software and most of the time cracked software it will contain malware few of them are clean it is a risk at the end so, at least they should the user, hey this is pirated software and might cause damage to your data also to warn the user from these software some users don't know if this game legal or not it would be always good to notify the user about everthing.
- Mar 25, 2021
- 515
IDK, but I got a web browser redirected(adware? PUP?)Kaspersky did nothing at all didn't fix it.
true, many cracks are safe, some times cracks can be as safe as normal software. I don't like antivirus always aim on keygen when all they do is just crack the software(but maybe the antivirus want to support the creator and kill cracks? idk)
but sometimes pup can be harmful(or annoying), it will be great if Kaspersky detect more "real "pup, not cracks.
I don’t disagree that a lot of these programs are potentially PUPs, and a lot of these behaviors should be labeled as PUPs. But my concern is that if one is making the case that Kaspersky is doing a bad job at PUP detection, the specifics of the 3 examples matters, especially when there’s basically no consensus except occasionally Fortinet (very false positive happy with non-enterprise software) and ESET and maybe one machine learning engine thinks it’s bad.
Trying to draw the line here can be really difficult and needs to be done carefully. Just because the OS has some functionality doesn’t mean that third party apps deserve to be destroyed by antivirus software. Like is WinRAR a PUP because Windows knows how to unzip files and WinRAR constantly nags you to buy it despite the purchased version doing nothing special? What about third party text editors that don’t carefully manage file associations so it’s hard to delete them. Windows already has NotePad. Photoshop has a very anti-consumer subscription model now so why have it when Microsoft Paint comes free? The Google Chrome updater on Mac has had bugs which brick macOS on 2 separate occasions last year. That’s caused more actual damage to computers than most register cleaner scams.
Of course there’s subtleties there — Auslogics Disk Defrag also supports operations like consolidating free space for VM disk resizing which the built in Windows defragger doesn’t. It also tries to get you to buy the Pro version, sure. That’s what makes PUPs such a gray area.
In my opinion if AVs want to detect PUPs they must be able to accurately and clearly separate these categories:
- Software that doesn’t intentionally harm your machine but provides very little useful benefit, and there’s better alternatives.
- Software that is slightly more evil than the above category and basically doesn’t do anything useful and purely uses aggressive tactics to get you to pay.
- Hacking tools that are sometimes used maliciously but they only do what the user tell it to do (for example, PasswordFox, penetration testing tools, WireShark, etc)
- ”legitimate” piracy tools - cracks, keygens, etc that do what they claim without intent to damage the system
- fake piracy tools - pretend to be piracy tools but actually deliver malware.
The latter two, as others have touched on, is a major problem with AVs these days. Microsoft Defender and BitDefender, in particular, will aggressively flag both categories of piracy tools the same way with very generic signatures. Kaspersky actually does a good job here the last time I tried googling “KMS Activator” and downloading and analyzing a few samples. Kaspersky didn’t care about the legit KMS activators but did flag the ones that were fake or also bundled malware payloads. BitDefender and in particular MS Defender just flagged them all as generic trojans.
You solved the issue with Norton Power Eraser, but didn't mention what the actual cause was.
Link: cj.dotomi.com
Warez tools are unsafe and may contain hidden threats, they are also not a legitimate way of acquiring licensed software.
Malwarebytes AdwCleaner is a free on-demand tool for detecting Adware/PUP software on Windows.
- Mar 25, 2021
- 515
yes, but antivirus should contain cleans adware functions, I don't really know what is removed, I will checked the log
I know but still... they are not virus or PUP, and shouldn't killed if they are safe
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Most PUA/PUP scanners are disabled by default, or require user interaction to enable during the first run.
Potentially Unwanted Apps do not necessarily need to be removed. If you are careful about your mouse clicks, you can avoid most unwanted software.
Ever considered buying the software?
- Mar 25, 2021
- 515
That is why I opened them, but still....not doing anything
then why PUP it unwanted? And there is no way I can afford 300+ dollar adobe pdf as a student
Even though I’m not a big fan of pirating software, I think it’s still interesting to try to hold AV software to the high standard that even if I intentionally try to execute something sketchy, AV software can and should try to protect my machine. Of course you put yourself at a lot less risk if you don’t engage in piracy or download sketchy things, but the reality is that it’s common enough of a practice that anti malware needs to be able to deal with it.
This why ESET has better detection to PUP [KB2629] What is a potentially unwanted application or potentially unwanted content?
especially this "
they consider registry cleaners as PUP and the explanation very convincing.
especially this "
Potentially unwanted applications – Registry cleaners
Registry cleaners are programs that may suggest that the Windows registry database requires regular maintenance or cleaning. Using a registry cleaner might introduce some risks to your computer system. Additionally, some registry cleaners make unqualified, unverifiable, or otherwise unsupportable claims about their benefits and/or generate misleading reports about a computer system based on the results of a "free scan". These misleading claims and reports seek to persuade you to purchase a full version or subscription, usually without allowing you to evaluate the registry cleaner before payment. For these reasons, ESET classifies such programs as PUA and provides you the option to allow or to block them."they consider registry cleaners as PUP and the explanation very convincing.
Kaspersky on the other hand doesn't have a comprehensive explanation to PUP like ESET https://encyclopedia.kaspersky.com/glossary/potentially-unwanted-programs-pup/
ESET writes a lot of stuff but that doesn't necessarily reflect how the product behaves. They document a ransomware behavior blocker module that we've discussed at length and have never managed to activate in any testing.
Here's the top 4 "register cleaner" google results. ESET only flagged one of them and it's the one from Auslogics. In fact they detect almost every download from Auslogics as PUA. Even similar cleaner apps from other vendors like O&O don't get detected: VirusTotal
It just simply doesn't seem consistent with any vendor and I don't see a reason why Kaspersky is being singled out here. Even vendors like Microsoft and MalwareBytes who claim to take an aggressive stance against these apps magically don't care to detect any of them.
CCleaner is known to be safe as it is just junk cleaner but look at something like ASC that boosts 300% of your computer performance and in some case, it can break your PC which happened to me in the past they are risky apps in my opinionESET writes a lot of stuff but that doesn't necessarily reflect how the product behaves. They document a ransomware behavior blocker module that we've discussed at length and have never managed to activate in any testing.
Here's the top 4 "register cleaner" google results. ESET only flagged one of them and it's the one from Auslogics. In fact they detect almost every download from Auslogics as PUA. Even similar cleaner apps from other vendors like O&O don't get detected: VirusTotal
It just simply doesn't seem consistent with any vendor and I don't see a reason why Kaspersky is being singled out here. Even vendors like Microsoft and MalwareBytes who claim to take an aggressive stance against these apps magically don't care to detect any of them.
Not really convinced there. They advertise a Pro and Business version and claim it makes your computer more secure and safer. It used to bundle Avast Free until Microsoft threatened to mark it as a PUA for doing so (Reports of Windows Defender Classifying CCleaner as PUA). It also silently collected data from machines by default: CCleaner provokes fury over Active Monitoring, user data collection | ZDNet
So once again, if you can evaluate some of the samples you sent to Kaspersky and find that they behave in a predatory way that fits the classifications that others use as PUA, I think it would be far more interesting to see how each vendor reacts to such a report. Otherwise, as you've demonstrated, simply lumping programs into categories like "driver updater" or "registry cleaner" are not enough to determine if something is a PUA or not.
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I really don't know but, Microsoft doesn't recommend registry cleaners as they might break PCs and some false claims it's like a scam by providing not rea; software like scareware
but, I am not an expert to judge them more precisely.
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- Mar 25, 2021
- 515
Is CCleaner Safe? Not Quite. And We Show You How to Replace It
CCleaner was once a must-have utility. But this has changed. Here's why CCleaner is no longer safe to use and how to replace it.
www.makeuseof.com
I removed it since the breach incident but it safe in terms of junk cleaning. and now just using a built-in windows cleaning tool.
Thank you so much for the information.
Thank you so much for the information.
Kaspersky is used to detect real malware, not blacklist APPs they don't like, pretty much what Malwarebytes does.
Both the setups you shared are not PUP.
Both the setups you shared are not PUP.
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