Author profile

Brendan Smith

Cybersecurity analyst covering malware families, suspicious files, and detection alerts. Brendan focuses on clear explanations of what a warning means, when it may be a false positive, and which cleanup steps are appropriate.

9,724 articles Malware detection Suspicious files False-positive checks

Published work

Recent articles by Brendan Smith

URL:MAL Virus (URL:Malicious) Avast Detection

If you spectate the alert of URL:MAL (or URL:Malicious) detection, it appears that your system has a problem. All malicious programs are dangerous, without...

GZGZQC Virus (.gzgzqc Files Ransomware)

The Gzgzqc virus belongs to the Snatch ransomware family. Harmful software of this type encrypts all the data on your PC (photos, text files,...