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

Password Stealer Malware: What to Do After Infection

Password stealer malware can steal passwords, cookies, tokens, wallets, and autofill data.…

Brendan Smith

Trojan:Win32/Vigorf.A: Remove It or False Positive?

Defender found Trojan:Win32/Vigorf.A? Use the file path to separate WinRing0/FanControl or Dell…

Brendan Smith

How to Protect Personal Data From Scams and Account Takeover

Personal data can fuel phishing, impersonation, SIM swap, identity theft, and account…

Brendan Smith

What Is 127.0.0.1? Localhost, Ports, Errors & Safety

127.0.0.1 is your computer’s IPv4 loopback address. Learn how localhost and ports…

Brendan Smith

VirTool:Win32/DefenderTamperingRestore: Settings Restored or Threat?

Defender reported VirTool:Win32/DefenderTamperingRestore? Check MSERT auto-heal, policy conflicts, exclusions, repeat alerts, and…

Brendan Smith

How to Reset Browser Settings After Hijacker Pop-Ups

Reset Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, or Safari after redirects, fake virus pop-ups,…

Brendan Smith

Wave Browser Removal Guide: Uninstall It Completely

Wave Browser keeps opening or came bundled with another download? Learn how…

Brendan Smith

PUA:Win32/Conduit Removal: Browser Hijacker Cleanup

PUA:Win32/Conduit is a Defender alert for Conduit/Search Protect browser hijacking. Learn quarantine,…

Brendan Smith

Is uTorrent Safe? PUABundler:Win32/uTorrent_BundleInstaller

Is uTorrent safe? Learn what the PUABundler:Win32/uTorrent_BundleInstaller alert means and how to…

Brendan Smith

Backdoor:Win32/Bladabindi!ml Removal Guide

Backdoor:Win32/Bladabindi!ml is a Defender alert for Bladabindi/njRAT. Learn what to do if…

Brendan Smith

AZORult Stealer: What It Is and How to Remove It

AZORult is an information stealer that can take browser passwords, cookies, wallet…

Brendan Smith

DLL Search Order Hijacking: How It Works and How to Prevent It

Learn how DLL search order hijacking works, why malicious DLLs load inside…

Brendan Smith

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