Brendan Smith

Brendan Smith has spent over 15 years knee-deep in cybersecurity, chasing down malware from the gritty reverse-engineering of old-school trojans all the way to wrangling full-blown incident responses for small-to-medium businesses that couldn’t afford a full-blown breach. Over at Gridinsoft, he’s the guy piecing together those double-checked guides on nasty stuff like AsyncRAT, a remote access tool used in malware campaigns—helping readers make sense of the threat and work through cleanup without the extra headache.
Cybersecurity Analyst
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624 Articles

ClickLock Stealer Mac Removal: Stop the Password Trap

ClickLock keeps closing Mac apps and demanding a password. Regain control, check…

Brendan Smith

Dolphin X Stealer Uses AI to Rank High-Value Victims

Varonis analyzed the Dolphin X operator panel, which targets browser, wallet, SSH,…

Brendan Smith

msaRAT Hides C2 Traffic Inside Chrome and Edge

Cisco Talos found a Rust backdoor that starts a hidden Chrome or…

Brendan Smith

TrickBot Uses DNS Tunneling to Hide Windows C2 Traffic

A current TrickBot variant hides C2 data in DNS queries and persists…

Brendan Smith

Is Online-fix.me Safe? Virus Alerts and Cleanup After a Download

Online-fix.me warnings are not a file verdict. Separate a visit, download, or…

Brendan Smith

Check Point SmartConsole CVE-2026-16232 Exploited: Patch Now

CVE-2026-16232 is under active attack against internet-exposed Check Point management servers. Install…

Brendan Smith

Adobe Acrobat Extension Flaw Could Expose WhatsApp Web Chats

CVE-2026-48294 in Adobe Acrobat for Chrome could expose rendered WhatsApp Web chats.…

Brendan Smith

Is Windows Sandbox Safe for Testing Suspicious Files?

Windows Sandbox isolates unknown apps, but it cannot prove a file is…

Brendan Smith

RAVCpl64.exe: Safe Realtek File, Startup Impact, and Error Fixes

RAVCpl64.exe is usually a legacy Realtek audio control panel. Check its path…

Brendan Smith

armsvc.exe: Adobe Update Service or Malware Copy?

armsvc.exe is usually Adobe Acrobat Update Service. Check its path and signature,…

Brendan Smith

cc30wk.exe Virus Alert: CLEVO File or Malware Copy?

cc30wk.exe can belong to CLEVO Fn hotkeys and OSD, but a detection…

Brendan Smith

ETDCtrl.exe and ETDCtrlHelper.exe: Safe or Malware?

ETDCtrl.exe and ETDCtrlHelper.exe usually belong to an ELAN touchpad. Check the path…

Brendan Smith

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