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

DesckVB RAT Malspam

DesckVB RAT malspam abuses DoubleClick redirects before dropping a ZIP, script loader,…

Brendan Smith

UserOOBEBroker.exe: Safe or Malware?

UserOOBEBroker.exe is usually a Windows OOBE process, but wrong-folder copies can be…

Brendan Smith

SecurityHealthSystray.exe: Safe to Disable at Startup?

SecurityHealthSystray.exe is the Windows Security tray icon. Learn when startup is normal,…

Brendan Smith

Kirki CVE-2026-8206

Kirki 6.0.0 through 6.0.6 can let unauthenticated attackers route password reset links…

Brendan Smith

WeedHack Malware: Detection and Removal Guide

WeedHack hides in fake Minecraft mods and JAR files. Learn the Defender…

Brendan Smith

nethost.dll ProtonVPN Cleanup

Found nethost.dll beside ProtonVPN.exe or a fake VPN folder? Learn how to…

Brendan Smith

CVE-2025-48595: Android Exploit Status, June Patch

CVE-2025-48595 has limited targeted exploitation signals. Check NVD details, PoC/exploit status, June…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:JS/Cryxos.ASI!MTB: Remove or Clear Browser Cache?

Defender found Trojan:JS/Cryxos.ASI!MTB? Check the affected path, clear browser or Service Worker…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:MSIL/ValleyRAT.GZD!MTB: Recurring CMD Alert Fix

What Trojan:MSIL/ValleyRAT.GZD!MTB means, why a recurring CMD window is risky, and how…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:PowerShell/Asyncrat!rfn

What Trojan:PowerShell/Asyncrat!rfn means, why AsyncRAT is high risk, and how to clean…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:JS/Obfuse.NF!MTB: PowerShell Alert Keeps Coming Back

What Trojan:JS/Obfuse.NF!MTB means when Defender keeps catching hidden PowerShell, and how to…

Brendan Smith

Trojan.FakeGoogleJS Alert: What It Means and How to Clean It

Trojan.FakeGoogleJS is often a Malwarebytes alert for fake Google or browser-extension-style files.…

Brendan Smith

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