M
Malcolm Lawn
Guest
Today doing my usual weekly essential software updates I was surprised on my other PC which uses MSE to get a pop-up message soon after boot.
The MSE tray icon went red and reported a 'Severe' rated threat that required action including a full system scan to clean up the PC. The 'threat' detected was stated as suspicious behaviour by:-
C:\Windows\System32\MpSigStub.exe
I quarantined it as the options offered and then did the required full system scan. All good, 'threat' dealt with.
Because that PC hasn't been used for a week I began thinking about how this alleged malware had got onto it as the last downloads/browsing I'd done was the weekly maintenance updates which include, as always, a quick system scan by MSE and two anti-malware programs I use for on demand scanning.
That MpSigStub.exe is actually the: Microsoft Malware Protection Signature Update Stub which is used by and updated as part of MS's anti-malware protection features. That means Defender and MSE. I've also read that even on PCs not using either ie. using other anti-virus programs, it is still regularly updated.
So I checked another PC, with a very similar set up but using other AV protection and, yes, there it is sitting in the System32 folder. I checked it under previous versions and it had updated.................................yesterday when I'd been doing my weekly maintenance on that PC.
The conclusion I've had to come to is that MSE has detected part of its own protection system being updated as the 'severe' threat.
As said the MpSigStub.exe is now quarantined so is not in System32 any more but I assume will still be doing what it is supposed to do. That is if it is the genuine one and not some alleged malware replacement, as claimed in the hysterical AV/MW web site posts you find about any computer problems.
The question is how do I deal with this now? Is it a false positive? If so how do I create an exception so this doesn't happen again the next time it updates as it is going to do at some point?
More...
The MSE tray icon went red and reported a 'Severe' rated threat that required action including a full system scan to clean up the PC. The 'threat' detected was stated as suspicious behaviour by:-
C:\Windows\System32\MpSigStub.exe
I quarantined it as the options offered and then did the required full system scan. All good, 'threat' dealt with.
Because that PC hasn't been used for a week I began thinking about how this alleged malware had got onto it as the last downloads/browsing I'd done was the weekly maintenance updates which include, as always, a quick system scan by MSE and two anti-malware programs I use for on demand scanning.
That MpSigStub.exe is actually the: Microsoft Malware Protection Signature Update Stub which is used by and updated as part of MS's anti-malware protection features. That means Defender and MSE. I've also read that even on PCs not using either ie. using other anti-virus programs, it is still regularly updated.
So I checked another PC, with a very similar set up but using other AV protection and, yes, there it is sitting in the System32 folder. I checked it under previous versions and it had updated.................................yesterday when I'd been doing my weekly maintenance on that PC.
The conclusion I've had to come to is that MSE has detected part of its own protection system being updated as the 'severe' threat.
As said the MpSigStub.exe is now quarantined so is not in System32 any more but I assume will still be doing what it is supposed to do. That is if it is the genuine one and not some alleged malware replacement, as claimed in the hysterical AV/MW web site posts you find about any computer problems.
The question is how do I deal with this now? Is it a false positive? If so how do I create an exception so this doesn't happen again the next time it updates as it is going to do at some point?
More...
