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

RuntimesHost.exe Virus Cleanup

Found RuntimesHost.exe, node.exe, or a RuntimesHost_user task? Learn what it means, how…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:MSIL/Heracles: Defender Alert and Cleanup

Seeing Trojan:MSIL/Heracles or a Heracles !MTB variant in Microsoft Defender? Check the…

Brendan Smith

Gen:Variant Detection: False Positive or Malware?

Gen:Variant alerts from Bitdefender, Emsisoft, and related engines need source, path, signature,…

Brendan Smith

Clean Scan Popups

Windows Defender says no threats found but threat popups keep appearing? Separate…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:Win32/Caynamer.A!ml: False Positive or Malware?

Seeing Trojan:Win32/Caynamer.A!ml in Microsoft Defender? Learn when to remove it, when a…

Brendan Smith

Win32:Evo-gen[Trj]: False Positive or Malware?

Win32:Evo-gen[Trj] is an Avast/AVG heuristic alert. Learn when it is likely a…

Brendan Smith

Estart Center / E START App Removal After CrystalDiskInfo

Estart Center or E START App appeared after CrystalDiskInfo? Uninstall the bundle,…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:Win32/Egairtigado!rfn

Defender found Trojan:Win32/Egairtigado!rfn? Check the affected path, WinRAR Default.SFX context, false-positive signs,…

Brendan Smith

Potemkin Loader Turns ClickFix Into 11-Host Intrusion

A ClickFix command dropped Potemkin Loader, RMMProject and EtherRAT across 11+ hosts.…

Brendan Smith

Malware.AI Detection: False Positive or Malware?

Malware.AI is a Malwarebytes machine-learning detection. Learn when it may be a…

Brendan Smith

Accidentally Allowed a Threat in Windows Defender? Undo Allow

Clicked Allow on a Microsoft Defender threat by mistake? Revoke the allowed…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:Win32/Etset!rfn Alert: Removal Check

Defender found Trojan:Win32/Etset!rfn? Check Protection History, false-positive clues, repeat alerts, exclusions, startup…

Brendan Smith

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