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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685 Articles

Service Host Network Service High Network Usage: Find the Download

Identify the service behind heavy Windows network traffic, separate downloads from peer…

Brendan Smith

State Repository Service High CPU: Find the App Behind It

Trace State Repository Service high CPU to an app, update or Windows…

Brendan Smith

PAYLOAD Turns Windows Group Policy Into a Ransom Demand

PAYLOAD attackers used domain policy to display ransom notes without encrypting Windows…

Brendan Smith

Three Exploited Linux Kernel Flaws: Check Your Patch Track

CISA lists three exploited Linux kernel flaws. Check the exact Ubuntu kernel…

Brendan Smith

AgentCore Harness Test Exposes a Service Token Through Memory

Unit 42 demonstrated AgentCore credential theft through a support ticket. See why…

Brendan Smith

LeakySensey Rents Out Hacked Routers as a Proxy Network

LeakySensey turned weak VPN logins into rented proxies. What the exposed server…

Brendan Smith

Settra Ransomware Leaves a Defender Log Intact After a Typo

Huntress found that Settra misspelled a Defender event-log name. What survived, how…

Brendan Smith

The Gentlemen Turn Stolen Backups Into a Source of Credentials

Talos traced backup images being opened for credential extraction and cloud transfer.…

Brendan Smith

PureRAT (win.pure_rat): Removal and Account Recovery

Learn what PureRAT and win.pure_rat mean, how to respond to quarantine or…

Brendan Smith

RatHat Android Malware Can Reinstall Itself After Removal

RatHat turns Accessibility access into local ADB control. How a separate process…

Brendan Smith

AvastUI.exe Not Opening? Fix Application Errors Safely

AvastUI.exe will not open or shows an application error? Check protection status,…

Brendan Smith

CrossDeviceResume.exe Error: Disable Resume or Repair Windows?

Fix CrossDeviceResume.exe errors safely: turn off optional Resume, diagnose broken Windows apps,…

Brendan Smith

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