Just got Infected

[Phage]

I don't know. Not now certainly
I was running my usual scan in the background once a week routine. Avast I did on Monday, then MB this morning. As soon as MBAM cam up with the red flag I was mashing the 'kill' button.

My last backup was at the beginning of August, so probably no use in a reinstallation either

[satrow]

Attach your MBAM log?

[Phage]

Sorry - I nuked it. It started coming back with an error stating that it was unable to locate the licence server. I assumed that it had been blocked or compromised.

[satrow]

Is there a .json file in C:\ProgramData\Malwarebytes\MBAMService\ScanResults that you can open with Notepad?

I'd half expected you to say that CCleaner must have auto wiped the logs on boot but MBAM being borked is very suspect - and nothing to do with the CCleaner trojan; it was dead in the water, the malware server was misconfigured, infecting no-one!: https://blog.avast.com/update-to-the...urity-incident

I'd suggest you get a full checkup from the MBAM team, see if they can fix your licence server problems and get it working again. Post the support forum URL, I'd like to see what they say.

[Mr_Jon]

With this Trojan.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/0...ner_downloads/

Avast didn't pick it up at all, but Malwarebytes did.
What's the current thinking on free AV ? Do I have to bite the bullet and pay ?

If so, recommendations gratefully received.

I'm using Bitdefender free version at the moment. Seems alright, I don't even know it's there compared with my last AV, which spammed me with notifications and its own adverts.

Before BD I used free Avast for years. Recently uninstalled it off someone's laptop, and found that it is designed to trip up the inexperienced user. After going through all the uninstall hoopla and then rebooting, up pops an Avast notification along the lines off "click here to finish installation" - which would then reinstall it. I checked on background services and tasks, and lo and behold, it leaves stuff behind and doesn't actually uninstall. All designed to trick inexperienced users into carrying on with the program. That's not cool. I won't be using them again now, especially when combined with what's happened with CCleaner.

I had a paid Norton subscription about ten years ago with an old system. Utterly useless, it was wiped out by a virus. The only time I've had one in 25 years of PCing, and it coincided with the only time I had a paid subscription. The work computer has a paid Mcafee package - I use it about once a week, and am forever cleaning off malware and unwanted programs from it, but the fault lies with the other (primary) users of it. Still, it's not really doing its job.

An experienced user shouldn't really need a paid subscription, but if anyone else is using it then one never knows. I like Bitdefender due to it leaving me alone, and combine it with free mbam...just in case.