Question NPE detects itself has medium risk!

[Parkinsond]

No idea if that is true at all! but every single exe flagged by NPE has an expired digital certificate, I manually verified this for every single exe file in the list.

It seems the .exe files in system32 have expired (2025) digital certificates but the .exe files in winSxS all have valid digital certificates (2026). So Still sticking to my original conclusion that it is an expired digital certificate related issue nothing more than this even though other users are not see same the issue.

Whatever digital certificate list my system is using is probably causing these false positives in NPE and other windows exe files.

System is running well 100% stable and verified by several other AV software to be 100% clean.

Try enabling WDAC and check event viewer; under codeintegrity, you will find Windows own dll files with yellow alarm marks.

 

[piquiteco]

Anyway this little inchident made me go back to Bitdefender Total Security. Got a 3 device and 3 year sub at great price! I wanted to try Kaspersky but that was almost double the price in my country. Could not risk such a serious infection has I would have to delete the entire OS and start again which is not ideal at the present time.

For me, it's the opposite here. The Kaspersky license is very reasonably priced here. On the other hand, Bitdefender Total Security is three times more expensive than Kaspersky.

 

[Miravi]

Every single exe flagged by NPE has an expired digital certificate, I manually verified this for every single exe file in the list.

It seems the .exe files in system32 have expired (2025) digital certificates but the .exe files in winSxS all have valid digital certificates (2026). So Still sticking to my original conclusion that it is an expired digital certificate related issue nothing more than this even though other users are not see same the issue.

Whatever digital certificate list my system is using is probably causing these false positives in NPE and other windows exe files.

System is running well 100% stable and verified by several other AV software to be 100% clean.

Here's an article on how Authenticode signatures work when Microsoft signs system files in Windows: Time Stamping Authenticode Signatures - Win32 apps

Time stamping allows Authenticode signatures to be verifiable even after the certificates used for signature have expired.

[...]

The countersignature method of time stamping implemented below allows for signatures to be verified even after the signing certificate has expired or been revoked. The time stamp allows the verifier to reliably know the time that the signature was affixed and thereby trust the signature if it was valid at that time.

Even when older System32 files show "expired" certificates in their properties, the files are still considered functional and trustworthy by Windows. Timestamping allows signatures to remain verifiable even after the signing certificate has expired, because the timestamp proves that the signature was created while the certificate was still valid.

If you run sfc /scannow to verify the integrity of system files, it will check hashes and signatures to ensure that the files are totally uncompromised.

 

[The_King]

Here's an article on how Authenticode signatures work when Microsoft signs system files in Windows: Time Stamping Authenticode Signatures - Win32 apps



Even when older System32 files show "expired" certificates in their properties, the files are still considered functional and trustworthy by Windows. Timestamping allows signatures to remain verifiable even after the signing certificate has expired, because the timestamp proves that the signature was created while the certificate was still valid.

If you run sfc /scannow to verify the integrity of system files, it will check hashes and signatures to ensure that the files are totally uncompromised.

I should have probably stated this earlier but sometime last year windows did an update completed 100% then rebooted and while booting to desktop
said something went wrong and reverted back. I attempted the update 2 time after that at later dates with same result. So updates have not been done since mid/end of last year because of this. Something is probably wrong that requires a new OS install even though every check seems to be fine.

The OS is a few years old and probably a good idea for me to start with a fresh OS, so wont be spending more time on this issue. Thanks for all the suggestions and help its really appreciated and why this is such a fantastic forum.

 

[stonjean633]

View attachment 294302

I should have probably stated this earlier but sometime last year windows did an update completed 100% then rebooted and while booting to desktop
said something went wrong and reverted back. I attempted the update 2 time after that at later dates with same result. So updates have not been done since mid/end of last year because of this. Something is probably wrong that requires a new OS install even though every check seems to be fine.

The OS is a few years old and probably a good idea for me to start with a fresh OS, so wont be spending more time on this issue. Thanks for all the suggestions and help its really appreciated and why this is such a fantastic forum.

Good choice and a safe one!