bing Will Bing adverts ever be safe ?

[Depicus]

So I'm looking at getting the new Garmin Fenix 3 and have read all the reviews linked from Google so I thought I'd give Bing a go and search on there to see if there was anything different. So typed in the search term and an advert catches my eye on the right, mainly because it says "Garmin Drivers" and I'm wtf is this. Sadly clicked before I took a screenshot but this is where it took me.

 

 

A quick Bing about how to report malware and it seems this is a common problem on Bing. So was I unlucky or can Bing really not stop malware adverts ?

[Raa]

I don't consider any advertising to be safe, TBH.

[exotoxic]

I don't see a problem with it, it was an advert for a program that updates drivers.

[Depicus]

I don't see a problem with it, it was an advert for a program that updates drivers.

 

And this is probably why you and others get scammed.

 

1. I'm on a Mac so how it detected I was using Windows 8 I'm not sure

2. A quick Google and this is reported as a malware scam that will "detect" missing drivers on your pc then you pay to unlock the program to fix it.

3. Removal is apparently almost impossible - classic malware tactic 

4. If you think a program can detect drivers on a pc better than Windows Updates then good luck.

5. As far as I'm aware there are no Garmin products that need drivers - especially the watch I was looking at.

 

The annoying part is this is clearly a scam yet people like you still fall for it and despite numerous warnings nobody has done anything about it. I can almost guarantee the McAfee don't "recommend" malware nor is it Norton secured yet people see these things and think it's ok. Indeed Norton's own website monitoring marks the site as safe despite comments saying it's malware.

 

We seem to have given up on combating scammers.

[spaceelf]

4. If you think a program can detect drivers on a pc better than Windows Updates then good luck.

 

There are several that have worked better than Windows Update over the years.  I don't know about this particular one, but many driver updaters use a third party database that is not particularly impressive in my experience.

[exotoxic]

And this is probably why you and others get scammed.

 

LOL ok.

 

I decided to do some actual investigation...

 

I downloaded and checked the EXE for viruses with Comodo... nothing found.

I monitored the installation and found no unexpected/suspicious files/registery entries were added. (2 schedueld tasks added update/scan)

Ran the program and did a scan while monitoring network activity... 66B received, 0B sent.

Ran MalwareBytes anti-rootkit... nothing found.

Ran Malwarebytes anti-malware... DriverAssist detected as "potentially unwanted program"

Ran Spybot S&D malware scanner... nothing found.

Ran the provided uninstaller and checked file locations for left over stuff... nothing found (It does a better job than most at removing the files/reg entires it adds).

Checked schedueld tasks... The 2 that were added were removed.

Ran CCleaner to check for orphaned registry stuff... (Not sure how reliable/useful this is) nothing found.

Ran virus scan 1 more time, nothing found.

 

Other than been pretty much pointless, free software can probably do the same but with everything there are free and paid alternatives.

 

It doesn't try to trick/force/scare you in to paying for the update service so I don't consider there to be anything malicious about this software, unless someone who is more of an expert can give evidence otherwise.

 

i'm not associated with any development/promotion/distribution of the DriverAssist software.

[Depicus]

LOL ok.

 

I decided to do some actual investigation...

 

i'm not associated with any development/promotion/distribution of the DriverAssist software.

 

Ok I was just going on these

 

http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2015-032521-5610-99

 

http://www.shouldiremoveit.com/DriverAssist-143720-program.aspx

 

http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-driver-assist.html

 

http://malwaretips.com/blogs/driver-assist-removal/

 

http://botcrawl.com/driver-assist-virus-removal/

 

Ok you are right some say it is malware, others it's a PUP and some just say it's rubbish. I'm sticking with malware but I respect your opinion.

[Draconian Guppy]

+1 driverassit has been known for spamware. "eg download THIS to update THAT".

[PGHammer]

Actually, it's NOT just Bing - as much as Google wants you to think otherwise.

When I HAVE been whacked by "drive-by" malware - including here at Neowin itself - the major culprit has been - oddly enough - Google Advertising (via googleapis.com).  For three months, I actually blacklisted googleapis.com due to that issue.

Other vectors (not just Google and Bing) have been Facebook, Twitter, and even LinkedIn - and this is just this year alone.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

This is why i install an ad blocker on PC's I randomly end up fixing for people, it's hard to protect people from themselves when search engines have malicious adverts for legit applications.

Note the screenshots below are old, their from a blog post I did on this last year: