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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726 Articles

PUADlManager:Win32/OfferCore: Remove, Restore, or False Positive?

Defender found PUADlManager:Win32/OfferCore or PUADIManager? Check the path, decide false positive vs…

Brendan Smith

PUA:Win32/Softcnapp: Allow or Remove?

PUA:Win32/Softcnapp may be a false positive for a known app, but repeated…

Brendan Smith

sihost.exe: Shell Infrastructure Host Safe or Virus?

sihost.exe is safe in the Windows System32 folder with a Microsoft signature.…

Brendan Smith

WinRing0x64.sys Defender Alert: Safe Driver or Malware?

A practical check for WinRing0x64.sys: legitimate hardware utility, Microsoft vulnerable driver alert,…

Brendan Smith

Program:Win32/Wacapew.C!ml: False Positive or Remove?

Defender detected Program:Win32/Wacapew.C!ml? Learn how to check the file source, decide whether…

Brendan Smith

MsMpEng.exe High CPU Fix

Antimalware Service Executable using high CPU, memory, or disk? Learn safe MsMpEng.exe…

Brendan Smith

RegAsm.exe: Safe or Malware?

RegAsm.exe is a legitimate Microsoft .NET tool, but malware can imitate or…

Brendan Smith

HxTsr.exe: Safe Microsoft Process, High CPU, or Error?

HxTsr.exe usually belongs to the legacy Microsoft Mail and Calendar package. Verify…

Brendan Smith

Sniffing vs Spoofing

Learn the difference between sniffing and spoofing, how attackers use traffic capture…

Brendan Smith

csrss.exe: Safe Windows Process or Trojan Virus?

csrss.exe is normally safe in C:\Windows\System32. Verify the path and signature, recognize…

Brendan Smith

What Is UsoClient.exe? Safe or Virus?

UsoClient.exe is a legitimate Windows Update component when it runs from C:\Windows\System32…

Brendan Smith

SASE vs Zero Trust: Differences and When to Use Each

SASE is the cloud delivery architecture; Zero Trust is the access model.…

Brendan Smith

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