Windows Defender Is Becoming the Powerful Antivirus That Windows 10 Needs

That way when you start Edge from the bar you will have 2 Edge icons.
It was very annoying to me.
Try.

 

Agreed it's somewhat annoying for me too. But I tried the Repair a second time and still no luck. I've attached a screenshot of the "invisible" edge taskbar icon...

 

Try deleting the invisible icon.
Then open the task manager and see if you have Edge still open.
Kill any Edge processes.
Verify that you do not have any invisible Edge icons in the "Start menu" (at least this path is for italian language) folder.
Then try the repair again.

 

Tried all that, still no luck. It's invisible in the Start menu as well. Btw, I can launch edge no problem with this invisible icon. It's just that I can't get it to display the normal edge picture.

 

Try doing this,create a link with visible icon.

 

Is it pinned? I had to unpin it and then pin it again.

 

Edge isn't even in that location for me.

It is pinned, and unpinning/re-pinning still results in an invisible icon. It does show fine on the Taskbar in my Administrative account, but also invisible in that account's Start menu.

EDIT

Tried some other tips I searched up but still nothing, so I restored a recent disk image to get back to normal.

 

I think you misunderstood me, I was not talking about your video, but about the Magniber malware which didn't use any exclusion trick, would be nice if you could simulate such an attack, see link. BTW, months ago the PC Security Channel also posted a video of how Win Defender could be bypassed via the exclusions folder on Win 10, but this method didn't work on Win 11 since they have made the exclusion registry key unreadable.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...home-users-with-fake-software-updates.448297/

The first thing I do is to always disable UAC completely. Trust me, all of those alerts are not worth it if the system is already protected quite well.

I don't get it either because wasn't this supposed to be only a problem for MS Defender on corporate machines? I didn't have the problem because I never automatically install updates anyway.

 

Probably for the best. I had to do that on the machine that was damaged the most.

 

If that works for you then great. I don't recommend it for the general public. If you question as to whether or not you should disable it, then you shouldn't disable it.

 

Weird it didn't work for you. I just did it on another PC and it worked. Standard user account.

 

How do you handle AV-signature updates?

 

The Magniber ransomware files (and there were multiple) were just something that for whatever reason Microsoft failed to add to their defender database- and this went on for about 2 weeks. So for this one there was no trick, just extreme delay.

The exclusion method shown in my last two videos were done on Win11 (I use a StartAllBack desktop). In the last video the exclusion routine I newly coded and I assure you it was more complex than a reg entry.

 

Yeah I really wanted to solve the issue with one of the suggestions in this thread or through Google searches but I eventually ran out of patience after so many failed attempts Thank goodness for the image restore option. Thank you to you and @Sampei Nihira for the suggestions.

 

OK, I see. I didn't know that MS was a bit late to detect Magniber. But I was more interested in the ability to detect this attack via behavior blocking. For such a test you should then disable the network connection, since WD relies quite heavily on the cloud.

OK, this is a bit weird. So you're saying that there are multiple ways to abuse the exclusion folders in WD, even on Win 11? I suppose you already reported this to MS?

 

We talked about this subject before. Basically it's a matter of risk and reward. It's much more likely that my anti-malware tools will save me from malware than UAC. So it's not worth all of those hundreds of extra clicks. It's dumb security in my book. And most people might even click on ''yes'' automatically, because that's what they are used to.

I download them manually, once in a while. Besides, WD relies heavily on the cloud anyway, that's why its offline detection rate is so bad.

 

My comment was more for the general public. Not trying to talk you out of it. In most cases where it will be exploited it will be at the default level where someone exploits a Microsoft executable and the user never even sees a prompt. So ultimately I recommend running it at the maximum setting. If you're passive enough to just click ok on everything, security is already lost on you.

 

Yes, I know that it's standard advice to always leave UAC enabled and to always apply patches to Windows. But I came to the conclusion that usage of security tools and downloading software from trusted sources are way more important when it comes to keeping the system safe.

And trust me, I have actually practised what I preached. On Win XP I never installed updates and on Win 8/10 I never enabled UAC, not a single problem. What UAC did is giving me stress, same goes for patches who have broken Windows numerous of times. Of course I'm now talking about securing home users, because securing corporate machines is another thing.

 

I absolutely always detested UAC because of numerous unnecessary delays. Waste of time, resources to be a part of it IMO. My Anti-Malware Third-Party security supplies abundant protection even faster than a UAC ever could anyway. I see UAC as a Microsoft band aid geared mainly for the weak minded immature users where M$ needed to give them a guide. Easy way for them but more of an annoyance for seasoned computer enthusiasts and professional learned users.

As @cruelsister has pointed out before it's been a easy target for intruders to bypass anyway.

 

Yes exactly, UAC has to be one of the dumbest things that you could use for protection in my view. Depending on your computing habits, you might click on hundreds of self triggered UAC alerts a year, but for what exactly? Just because you're worried about some stealthy malware attack? If you're so worried about this, it's best to supplement your AV with a good behavior blocker, think of OSArmor, AppCheck and HitmanPro.Alert, for example.

 

BTW, I was just wondering about how do you look at all of these professional malware tests that are being done by companies like MRG Effitas and SE Labs, to name a few. Do you consider them to be trustworthy or is it mostly marketing, see link.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...ecurity-eps-home-2022-q4.449929/#post-3127438

 

Personally these tests don't interest me very much for a few reasons- Almost of the tests try to impress with the quantity of malware tested and the fact that they are all "fresh". Truth is that the majority of malware samples harvested in a given- say- 1 week period are clones. Although there may be a few new ideas but the majority will be so close in coding to make them essentially indistinguishable (nihil sub sole novum). This is important as the more of this junk that exists in a given test, the higher the individual product detection percentage numbers will be.

It really comes down to the Pro Test sites not cherry-picking malware for uniqueness but letting everyone in (malware-wise) for the sake of sample numbers. This is done so that most everyone gets a medal, because small sample size and uniqueness is inversely proportional to overall AM application percent detection score. But also please note that malware cherry-picking may also expose the tester to the possibility of bias so such sample selection is not in itself a bad thing..

And the Pro's- and here we can include the larger Utubers- want (need) most products to get a medal with individual differences being trivial as they have a vested interest (money from advertising- click bait- as well as the cash obtained from the companies to have their product tested (and if trashed, will they be back for the next quarters testing?) in keeping things close.

So although these Pro Tests are Trustworthy according to the restrictions they put themselves under, smaller, more focused, and unfunded tests may yield greater enlightenment with the downside of darkening one's day.

(My apologies if any of this rant was unclear as I still have a bit of a headache from last night...)

 

My Defender Quick Scans are taking forever. Something changed about a week ago. Anyone having same issue?

 

Well under 5 min in each of last few days, running Windows 11, 21H2.

 

In Windows 10, the scan takes around the same time it always does. It's been as "fast" as 9 seconds before but I'm dubious about that one. There is also very little on here to scan besides Windows.

Spoiler

I'm thinking I'll check Windows 11 later, maybe.