Malwarebytes going to battle with PUPs and Adware

[Batu69]

Today, Marcin Kleczynski, the Chief Executive Officer of Malwarebytes, announced in a blog post that Malwarebytes is going to battle with PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs) and thus the companies that make them.  

 

With adware and PUP programs getting out of hand and many of them exhibiting malware-like characteristics, Malwarebytes had previously decided to be more aggressive against adware and PUP programs.

 

Unfortunately, over time the PUP developers and distributors created more aggressive distribution methods and new techniques to avoid security programs that detect them. Due to this, Malwarebytes has updated their PUP criteria to be even more aggressive on how they categorize PUPs and target them.

 

Based on Malwarebyte's updated PUP criteria, starting today their products will detect programs that exhibit the following behavior:

• obtrusive, misleading, or deceptive advertising, branding, or search practices
• excessive or deceptive distribution, affiliate or opt-out bundling practices
• aggressive or deceptive behavior especially surrounding purchasing or licensing
• unwarranted, unnecessary, excessive, illegitimate, or deceptive modifications of system settings or configuration (including browser settings and toolbars)
• difficulty uninstalling or removing the software
• predominantly negative feedback or ratings from the user community
• diminishes user experience
• other practices generally accepted as riskware, scareware, adware, greyware, or otherwise commonly unwanted software by the user community

As I have said numerous times, PUP distributors and developers are getting out of control and need to be stopped.

 

They are creating adware and PUPs that are not only distributed in a deceptive manner, but in many cases also include characteristics that are only found in computer infections. These characteristics could include backdoors, rootkits, and persistence techniques that make the programs difficult to remove. 

 

Though anyone with common sense would say that these programs should be considered malware, instead they are classified as PUPs, or not detected at all, because security companies are afraid of legal threats from the PUP developers. In fact, the term PUP, or Potentially Unwated Program, was created to avoid calling these programs malware and to avoid legal consequences of doing so.

 

With that said, kudos to Malwarebytes for taking a stand against aggressive adware and PUPs. 

 

Article source

[Ballistic Gelatin]

[My sincere apologies to "Batu69" for this preemptive and "slightly" OT reply. But I just could not resist.  ]

 

In a U.S. presidential election year, PUP also stands for "Potentially Unwanted Politicians", nearly all of whom exhibit the behaviors of traditional bloatware.

 

For example:

• They engage in obtrusive, misleading, or deceptive advertising and branding during their campaigns by lying through their teeth and viciously attacking their opponents, their families, their pets and their choices of toilet paper.
• You can't uninstall them because it is nearly impossible to vote incumbents out office, a phenomenon otherwise known as "Terminate and Stay Resident".
• They embrace aggressive or deceptive behavior (see above).
• They engage in crafting unwarranted, unnecessary, excessive, illegitimate, or deceptive modifications of government regulations or surrender their political (and financial) souls to special interests.
• They consistently -- and deservedly -- receive predominantly negative feedback or ratings from the user community, which voted them into office in the first place. This is called "political phishing" because you got suckered into believing their promises, donating to their campaign and then voted for them. Just Don't Click.
• It almost goes without saying that their behavior "diminishes the user (voter) experience" after they take office.
• Finally, PUPs are getting out of control and need to be stopped. This can be achieved by not voting for them in the first place.

So, over the next five weeks, think outside of the (ballot) box and look at the candidates as pieces of...software (POS). Would you want them representing you by installing them into elective office? Do you really want a "buggier" government and its attendant bloated bureaucracy? It's time to eschew bad political code and do what's right. 

 

Announcer: "We now return to your regularly scheduled sub-forum already in progress."

[Holmes]

I want to file a complaint ballistic hijacked this thread by flip flopping and telling this comical post lawls.  I have to say calling them potentially unwanted politicians is incorrectly name one candidate in the past five years that has been considered a Potentially Wanted one if you cant think of one you lose hahahaha.  As for Potentially Unwanted Programs I usually ignore them when scanning for malware as in the past I have been able to remove alot of them.  When it goes to some there are some installers I have used that if you uncheck it it gets installed anyway those are considered malware in my opinion.

[knowledge-Spammer]

good for malwarebytes

[steven36]

Good for what  to  try to replace conman sense ?

 

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/potentially-unwanted-programs-pup

Only  way to be  infected by a pup   you must install it yourself you must execute  the exe  installer be it via some free program or ad ..   I was on website that got infected  with some kind of pup  the other day  when  it would try to download i just canceled  it  and left  the site i used conman sense and it prevented  it just fine ..

 

Quote

Avoid Bundled software. Many toolbars, add-ons/plug-ins, browser extensions, screensavers and useless or junk programs like registry cleaners, optimizers, download managers, etc, come bundled with other software (often without the knowledge or consent of the user) and can be the source of various issues and problems to include Adware, pop-up ads browser hijacking which may change your home page/search engine, and cause user profile corruption. Thus, bundled software may be detected and removed by security scanners as a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP), a very broad threat category which can encompass any number of different programs to include those which are benign as well as problematic. Since the downloading of bundled software sometimes occurs without your knowledge, folks are often left scratching their heads and asking "how did this get on my computer." Even if advised of a toolbar or Add-on, many folks do not know that it is optional and not necessary to install in order to operate the program. If you install bundled software too fast, you most likely will miss the "opt out" option and end up with software you do not want or need. The best practice is to take your time during installation of any program and read everything before clicking that "Install" or "Next" button. Even then, in some cases, this opting out does not always seem to work as intended.

 

People themselves are the   security risk  so they pay $24.95 per year  for a  piece  of mind  because they don't know how to make good decisions on there on and the program don't have a brain and  if it don't have the signature they  are infected anyways its a false sense of security .They cant protect themselves  from being  cracked . You know what cracking  is? someone finds a weakness in the program  and attacks it .

Quote

 

Common sense, Good Security Habits and safe surfing is essential to protecting yourself from malware infection. No amount of security software is going to defend against today's sophisticated malware writers for those who do not practice these principles and stay informed. Knowledge and the ability to use it is the best defensive tool anyone could have. This includes educating yourself as to the most common ways malware is contracted and spread as well as prevention.
 
Important Fact: It has been proven time and again that the user is a more substantial factor (weakest link) in security than the architecture of the operating system or installed protection software.

 

 

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/407147/answers-to-common-security-questions-best-practices/

 

NOD32  has had Anti PUP  for years 1st thing i do when I install  it is uncheck  it because  in those signatures  is were most of the false positives are. I never needed Anti PUP  because I have conman sense.  when i see a advertisement MAM  getting  tougher on PUPs  I say oh boy more bloody false positives people have to endure  because they can't make  good decisions on there on!

 

When i download a installer i scan it frost on VT  and most things can be ran as portable  so i extract it with UE  extracting a program bypasses any PUP.

 

Malwarebytes  needs to add all there programs in one programs . Like NOD32  has  Antivirus , Anti Pup , Anti malware , Anti exploit   to ever be considered  anything more than a extra layer of protection  that you really don't have  to have in real time .  I  went years  and never used  it for real time  and done scans every so often and it never found nothing but false positives.

 

I used MAM ,MAE and SAS  for real time for a few months along with NOD32  and all it did was use up more resources so  when i installed Windows 10 RS1  I just installed NOD32 and do scans with a  portable version of  MAM  and still never finds nothing but FP...  hackpatch/Crack.keygen .

 

Keep in mind im not against using security programs as long as you don't let them give you a false sense  of  security, it can not be used to replace conman sense. If you use conman sense along with them, you will find these programs hardly find anything, and there just there just  in case a real threat  ever emerges .

 

[knowledge-Spammer]

the problem with conman sense  is the software developer do not use conman sense  when  they developer  programs

i understand very well about PUP  as i use utorrent

software developer  can do some bad tricks to trick people  in to installing potentially unwanted program

this man say it how it is

watch from 4mins in to the video

Spoiler