Advice Request Secure Antivirus 360 - Found on Cnet

[roger_m]

Malware Lab's Rogue Gallery | Lavasoft

Checkout these bad boys

Regards Eck

Thanks for the link. I just took at look, and they're all five to twelve years old. Lavasoft has not updated their list of rogue software since 2011, when the new owners took over.

At one point before aquiring Lavasoft the current owners released thier own very basic antivirus which used Vipre's scan engine.

 

[Wave]

Don`t think anyone suggested that you were wrong Wave but that only that these fakey type crappo programs are using real sigs instead of just graphics.

Anyway you could do worse than avira sigs.

Regards Eck

There's no problem with being wrong.

A number of years ago, there were plenty of rogue/fake antiviruses, which would always say that your system was infected - even if it was clean, to encourage people to buy the full version. However, these days, such rogues are few and far between.

What is reasonably common these days however, is antiviruses such as this one, which come from unknown pubishers, which actually use Bitdefender, Avira or Vipre signatures. Due to them using legitimate signatures, they will only identify actual threats rather than providing fake scan results. Often these products aren't very good. More often than not, they will have a very basic user interface, with limited options. Also, they typically won't have any proactive protection. Another bad point, is that sometimes they have an extremely high price which is much higher than the price of well known and trusted antiviruses. But, the reality is that they will detect viruses, and also remove them too, if you buy the product, and won't harm your system.

@Wave if you were to actually test any of these antiviruses, rather than making assumptions, you would see that what I say is true. I hope you realise that many things detected by antiviruses these days are deteted on the basis of them being "uwanted programs" rather than acutally being threats. These unwanted programs are more often than not safe, but are typically detected because they come as unwanted bundled extras with other software.

Sorry, thanks for that amazing explanation but I don't need to be told how it works - honestly to me it seems you are just trying to provoke me.

All I will say on this discussion (I will not be providing any further replies) is that the fact that you think running programs in a VM is enough (testing them - even on a host) to check whether they are safe/not unwanted or not tells me everything I need to know.

Running software won't show you how it works (the internals behind what the user can see).

 

[roger_m]

There's no problem with being wrong.


Sorry, thanks for that amazing explanation but I don't need to be told how it works - honestly to me it seems you are just trying to provoke me.

All I will say on this discussion (I will not be providing any further replies) is that the fact that you think running programs in a VM is enough (testing them) to check whether they are safe/not unwanted or not tells me everything I need to know.

You say you don't need to be told how it works, yet you have the idea that this is somehow a fake antivirus. I'm not trying to provoke you, just stating facts. You (and anyone else who may be interested) can easily find that what I say is true (and that this is a legitmate - though no doubt not very good antivirus), by installing and trying it, but you don't want to. That's your choice of course.

As for using VMs, I don't know why you mentioned that, as I didn't bring it up. In the many years I've been testing such software, not once have I used a VM to do so. I always test them on my main laptop I use everyday. When I'm done testing, I simply uninstall the software. While you may have the opinion that it is dangerous to so, my many years of testing prove otherwise. These so called fake programs, are most often then not are safe (although mostly not worth buying), and can be easily uninstalled. There are countless websites which provide misleading information about PUPs, and say they are mlicious in order to generate affiliate revenue from the sale of malware removal software. Usually they are affiliates of SpyHunter, which is well known for being not very good when compared to alternatives such as Malwarebytes and for the most part is never promoted by reputable websites.

 

[roger_m]

After doing a bit of searching, it's interesting to find that this antivirus is sold under many different names:

AntiVirus Guard Software by ZeveraHost
DigiZoft Antivirus Safeguard
GeekTech Antivirus
Intelligent Antivirus
One Click Anti-Virus
PC Shield Antivirus
Security1 Antivirus & Malware Pro
Sharp Shield Total Security
Shield Antivirus
StandupAV
Troth Antivirus
US Software Mart Antivirus
Viva PC Security

No doubt it is sold under quite a few more names as well. The price the various rebrands are sold for varies a lot.
It seems that Secure Antivirus 360 is quite a bargain at $19.99 for a year's subscription, as the other rebrands are much more expensive. Some cost as much as $89 to $100 for a year's subscription. But that's nothing compared to the pricing for GeekTech and Standup. Prices start at $49 for a 7 day subscription, and go up to $459 for a three month subscription for three devices. I wonder if anyone would actually be foolish enough to pay that much?

 

[tim one]

Honestly I don't understand the last posts of this thread where, despite the fact that we have a support scam link and related screenshots about this "antivirus" and an online malware analysis service report:

https://www.reverse.it/sample/39c81...15a3b0f8af4de7c5e542c3966d1?environmentId=100

where clearly it appears that the software in question has behavior patterns similar to malware, someone said the opposite.

I repeat: I am pretty amazed by the fact that, in spite of such concrete evidence, confirmed by anyone who has some knowledge about the interpretation of the results of an analysis report, someone wants to say the opposite of what said above.

According to documented evidence Secure Antivirus 360 is NOT a legitimate software but it's a fake AV, scareware, or how you want to call it.
Who says that Secure 360 is a legit software, please should lead to the same documented evidence that, according to them, would like to prove the opposite.

Words are not sufficient to confirm these fanciful theories when we have concrete facts, report and evidence that prove the contrary.

I've been studying malware for many years, and I think I'm skilled enough to read an online malware analysis report without problems.

I invite some people to do the same and if someone is not skilled in doing it, please don't make nonsense comments and trying to keep conversations on a professional level.

Thank you.

 

[Behold Eck]

Thanks for the link. I just took at look, and they're all five to twelve years old. Lavasoft has not updated their list of rogue software since 2011, when the new owners took over.

At one point before aquiring Lavasoft the current owners released thier own very basic antivirus which used Vipre's scan engine.

Yeah they could do with updating the list but I think it`s still fun to see what was around at the time.

I rememder Adaware before the change to the Bitdefender sigs. A bit heavy on the ram if I remember correctly ?

Hone ?stly I don't understand the last posts of this thread where, despite the fact that we have a support scam link and related screenshots about this "antivirus" and an online malware analysis service report:

https://www.reverse.it/sample/39c81...15a3b0f8af4de7c5e542c3966d1?environmentId=100

where clearly it appears that the software in question has behavior patterns similar to malware, someone said the opposite.

I repeat: I am pretty amazed by the fact that, in spite of such concrete evidence, confirmed by anyone who has some knowledge about the interpretation of the results of an analysis report, someone wants to say the opposite of what said above.

According to documented evidence Secure Antivirus 360 is NOT a legitimate software but it's a fake AV, scareware, or how you want to call it.
Who says that Secure 360 is a legit software, please should lead to the same documented evidence that, according to them, would like to prove the opposite.

Words are not sufficient to confirm these fanciful theories when we have concrete facts, report and evidence that prove the contrary.

I've been studying malware for many years, and I think I'm skilled enough to read an online malware analysis report without problems.

I invite some people to do the same and if someone is not skilled in doing it, please don't make nonsense comments and trying to keep conversations on a professional level.
ed

Your missing the point i.e. would it work ? Yes it would unlike a true "fake" av that is merely a graphical embelishment with no real signatures.

It is a piece of crud but I think you should test it and publish your results just to see how malicious it is ?

Regards Eck

 

[tim one]

It is a piece of crud but I think you should test it and publish your results just to see how malicious it is ?

Thanks for the advice, but I suppose not to waste my time behind this software.

 

[Behold Eck]

Thanks for the advice, but I suppose not to waste my time behind this software.

I know what you mean but if ever I get sometime to waste(not this side of the festive season anyway) I might let it loose on my much abused test rig ?

Regards Eck

 

[roger_m]

I scanned the installer of Secure Antivirus 360 at VirusTotal, and it was only detected by one out of 56 scanners. The detection appears to be a very clear case of a false positive. I then installed this antivirus again, and scanned five of the exe files installed in the Program Files folder. They were all reported as being clean by Virus Total.

I downloaded the installer from download.com, as there appears to be no download link on the product's website. This version of Secure Antivirus 360 was released in September, which means that there should have been adequate time for AV vendors to start detecting it if it actually was malicious. Also, it's worth noting that this is not a new product, as download.com first added it in December of 2012.

So while the analysis of it suggested it was unsafe, because of these scan results, I stand by my statement that this is a legitmate antivirus. Of course it's certainly not worth buying, but it's also not a fake antivirus.