Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, I will see if we can get the best person to answer this question to contact you at the email you used to register with the forum, but we are coming up on Friday afternoon in the U.S. office and a response may not be available until Monday. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, I am the author of the Orbital Decay: the dark side of a popular file downloading tool article on ESET's WeLiveSecurity blog. Given the nature of the what was reported, I would caution against using any version of the software. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, The site listed in the email us-eset.com as being the sender of the license is not ESET or one of its resellers, but rather some group operating from Iran that sells pirated or counterfeit licenses for ESET's software. Their website is, in fact, blocked in ESET's software. I would suggest that you contact your credit card company or bank to report the scammer and issue a chargeback for a fraudulent purchase. ESET does not do business in Iran. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, I have asked ESET's web team to look into this. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, You will probably need to submit the files in question to ESET's threat lab for a more definitive analysis (see ESET Knowledgebase Article 141, "How do I submit a virus, website or potential false positive sample to ESET's lab?" for detailed instructions) but generally speaking, NS-prefixed temporary directories and files denote an application which has been packaged with NullSoft Scriptable Install System which, as the name implies, is a software program for making installers for other software. Nullsoft is the same company that made Winamp, a popular program for playing MP3s back in the late 1990s. The detection being reported by ESET's software is of a Potentially Unwanted Application, which is a class of applications that are not malicious software in and of themselves, but that perform activities you might or might not want being performed on your computer (hence the use of the word "potentially"). More information about them can be found in ESET Knowledgebase Article 2629, "What is a potentially unwanted application or potentially unwanted content?" or the in the Potentially Unwanted Applications White Paper published in ESET's WeLiveSecurity blog. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, I am looking at the ESET SysRescue Live download page at https://www.eset.com/int/support/sysrescue/ and it does say Windows 10 is supported. You might have better results using the downloadable .IMG file for creating a USB version than the .ISO file, which is normally intended for optical (CD or DVD) media. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, The telephone number for ESET's US office +1 (866) 343-3738. It is toll-free, and there is no charge for customer service activities like troubleshooting a license activation. Customer service, by the way, is handled on-site by ESET employees. I am not sure what message you saw or where it came from, but dialogs and messages from ESET's software do not contain phone numbers. I wonder if this might have been some kind of pop up or notification toast message from a web browser. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, Please contact the ESET Authorized Reseller or Distributor from which you purchased the license. They can provide you with the credentials used to register ESET NOD32 Antivirus for Linux Desktop. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, The ESET icon in the system tray notification area should be appearing automatically after the system starts. If it isn't, it could be that the program is getting disabled/prevented from being launched for some reason. I have seen this in the distant past with various system cleaning/tweaking/performance utilities, but do not recall seeing it recently. Please contact your legal ESET distributor or office and open a ticket with them, as a support engineer will need to examine your system further to determine what action is blocking the ESET user interface icon from populating in the system tray notification area. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, Hmm… this is kind of a long answer. ESET is always looking at all sorts of new (and not-so-new) technologies and how we can better protect people, and the Internet of Things is one of those areas where there are a lot of challenges and a lot of interest. We have done everything from finding vulnerable devices and reporting them to their vendors (under responsible disclosure guidelines, BTW), as well as looked at the space from the perspective of a higher level overview. So, from that perspective, ESET does have interest in the space. But, that said, it is important to understand that there are a lot of non-obvious background activities that go into shipping actual hardware. My last employer (before I joined ESET in 2005) was a telephony hardware manufacturer that made embedded systems like VoIP handsets, PoE switches, PBXes and the like. While that may sound dissimilar to an "IoT device" at first glance, they are really largely the same: General purpose (commodity) hardware and operating systems software that has been highly-optimized and engineered to perform a few set-purpose activities. In the case of those devices, that involved things like taking and placing calls, handling voicemail, toggling MWI (message waiting indicator) LEDs and connecting to a variety of standards-based (SIP) and proprietary (Cisco) devices. To get to all of that, though, the company had to go through all sorts of prototyping to design and then test the hardware, source component suppliers, find printed circuit board manufacturers, assembly partners, etc. Doing all of that requires having lots of electronics engineering talent, with specialization not just in embedded but telecommunications and networking as well. You have to design the plastics (or contract that out to a design firm), as well as do things like get certification from various regulatory agencies and safety organizations (FCC, UL, TUV and so forth). You even have to design crush-proof packaging and foam inserts which is a highly-specialized field. Getting device through certification is not always easy (when I left my last employer, they were going through a multi-month long process to get a Bluetooth radio module inside a handset certified for EU use) or cheap. And, once you've finally got a working, certifiable product, it gets even more complicated. If you have a physical product like hardware, you have to have physical space for engineers to sit in, warehouse space for inventory, a shipping department, a QA/testing department, an RMA department for analyzing why units failed in the field and repairing them and so forth. Also, expect to re-spin (revise) your product's hardware several times over its life-cycle to fix bugs in it. Those will occur, no matter how much you design or test for them. At my last employer, they had one product with a circuit board on revision H (8th revision) because revisions A though G had flaws in them. Even something as simple as the Raspberry Pi 4 has design flaws that need to be fixed with a board redesign. All together, that is a lot of work, and while ESET has engaged in some activities-at-scale before which required some specialized engineering, making an IoT security device is in a different kind of direction than the has historically been in. That's not to say that you will never see an ESET IoT security device, but just not to expect anything in the near term, because there's a lot of work to do to get into the hardware space. It may instead be more effective to partner with companies to provide that kind of functionality. But, that's a discussion far beyond my area of expertise. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, ESET is not in the wireless networking business, but using a guest wireless network without access to your own internal network of machines is a good start. Keeping the router up-to-date with the latest firmware from the manufacturer is important, too. If they are no longer providing updates, you can look to see if firmware from a third-party is available, such as DD-WRT, or replace the router with a new, supported device. If you are using ESET Internet Security or ESET Smart Security Premium, you can use the Connected Home Monitor feature to see what is attached to your internal network. For scanning other people's computers, you may want to consider using a USB flash drive with ESET SysRescue Live installed to it. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, The email address you mentioned is, I believe, for ESET's Hungarian distributor. While they can certainly receive your report and forward it to ESET's threat lab, it is always going to be faster to contact ESET's threat lab directly using the instructions my colleague @Marcos provided. False positive reports are treated with high priority by ESET, and the lab is staffed 7×24×365 with experts who can investigate them. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, ESET has published several articles about the BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708) vulnerability, which an exploit targeting RDP on older/unpatched versions of Windows. You can read them on ESET's WeLiveSecurity blog at: https://www.welivesecurity.com/2019/11/11/first-bluekeep-attacks-fresh-warnings/ https://www.welivesecurity.com/2019/08/15/microsoft-warning-wormable-flaws/ https://www.welivesecurity.com/2019/07/17/bluekeep-patching-progress/ https://www.welivesecurity.com/2019/06/06/nsa-urging-users-patch-bluekeep/ https://www.welivesecurity.com/2019/05/22/patch-now-bluekeep-vulnerability/ We may have some additional articles about RDP security in the future (depending, of course, on what happens in the future with things like BlueKeep). Regards. Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, If you can send me a private message with the details I can forward it along to the responsible department. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, You have posted in three different message threads requesting assistance with your missing license, which makes it a little difficult to figure out which one to help you in. I have gone ahead and consolidated all of your messages into this one message thread and hidden the duplicates so that ESET's support staff may better assist you. I have found the ESET NOD32 Antivirus license you ordered in our licensing database, and re-sent the license to you through that mechanism. I have also gone to the lost license look up page at https://www.eset.com/int/support/lost-license/, entered the email address you used to register with the forum, and submitted a request through that. These should both appear in your email account within the hour (if not sooner). Please check your spam folder plus any mail rules that may be applied on your account if they do not show up in your inbox. Lastly, I will sent you a private message with your license key, just in case your mail provider is having some sort of problem. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, I would recommend that you be very cautious about buying license keys from places where the prices seem "too good to be true." ESET's websites, plus those of its distributors, partners and resellers are legitimate, reliable sources of the software, providing full service, support and assistance. If you see a license being sold for a fraction of the price from some online site, it could be a trial license, counterfeit, pirated, or some kind of a crack. Keep in mind that ESET takes action against licenses that are abused. It could be that you buy a license from some random site, and it works for a single day before being deactivated because of abuse, and then you have lost out on both your money and protecting your computer. Right now there are various holidays promotions going on in various places around the world, so you might find some good deals online for ESET's software. Also, you can always contact an authorized partner, reseller, distributor or even local ESET office to see what sort of unadvertised discounts might be available (discounts for pensioners, students, switching from a competitive product, and so forth). Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, ESET does have a few OEM partnerships with companies like agreements like Gryphon Online Safety, Ltd. for its router and ClevX, LLC for removable media security, however, it is usually up to each OEM partner to do their own sales, marketing and branding. There may be some joint PR activities, but usually in deals like these ESET is something of a "silent partner," providing the partner with a particular technology or set of technologies which they then go out and sell. I just mentioned those two as examples because they actually mention ESET on their websites. Some OEM partners choose to mention their ESET partnership, others do not. This is a little different from ESET's Technology Alliance, which we have allied with companies like GreyCortex, Safetica and Xopero to provide a complementary technology, such as traffic analysis, DLP or backups. You can learn more about these types of activities via the Business Development section of ESET's web site, but as they are primarily sales activities, they are not normally going to come up for discussion here. As my colleague @Marcos noted above, we're primarily a venue for support and sharing information in the forum. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, An ESET Cyber Security for macOS license can be used to activate ESET NOD32 Antivirus for Windows or ESET NOD32 Antivirus for Linux Desktop. An ESET Cyber Security Pro for macOS license can be used to activate ESET Internet Security for Windows or ESET NOD32 Antivirus for Windows or ESET NOD32 Antivirus for Linux Desktop. For more information, see https://www.eset.com/us/home/unilicense/. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

[Admin note: One more more off-topic messages were removed. Please keep comments relevant to the discussion at hand. AG]

Hello, You may also find the following ESET Knowledgebase Articles of use/interest: • ESET KB #73, What operating systems are ESET products compatible with? (Home Users) • ESET KB #7292, Microsoft Windows Support Policy and ESET products However, as my colleague Marcos noted, it is best to use the most recent version of your operating system as possible, as that is the one which is going to be most up-to-date in terms of security features and fixes. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, You can download the previous version of ESET Internet Security (version 12.2.30.0) from: 64-bit: https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/eis/windows/v12/latest/eis_nt64.exe 32-bit: https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/eis/windows/v12/latest/eis_nt32.exe This should allow you to get up and running with your protection immediately, but please contact support directly via this form so that they can help you investigate why version 13 was not working on your computer. As this is a new release, the engineers are very interested in troubleshooting issues like the one you reported. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, NSO Group, is the company which is reportedly the developer of the Pegasus, if this Wikipedia article is to be believed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group. ESET's researchers have written a few articles about it in various languages on the WeLiveSecurity blog. I have not looked into the reporting in detail, but if the spyware installs itself on targets' devices with high enough privileges, it probably just waits until encrypted content is decrypted, and then passes those decrypted contents on to its operators. That way, there's no need to spend any time breaking the encryption. Regards Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, If you are in the United States, you can call ESET's technical support department toll-free at +1 (866) 343-3738. Regards, |Aryeh Goretsky

Hello, While ESET does not condone software piracy (or any other kind of piracy, for that matter)*, neither is ESET the software police. That said, it is important to keep in mind that peer-to-peer file sharing programs can be bundled with potentially unwanted applications, adware or even outright malware. They can also introduce privacy issues, such as the leaking of sensitive or confidential information due to improper configuration, as well as security vulnerabilities which can be subject to exploitation by threat actors. And, of course, there is also malware which may make use of peer-to-peer networks for various reasons, from spreading as a worm, for use as command-and-control infrastructure, exfiltration of stolen data, and so forth. Web sites involved in the facilitation of software piracy often have limited opportunities for revenue generation, as legitimate advertising networks, payment processors, e-commerce providers and other businesses may be unable or unwilling to do business with them for legal or other reasons. As such, these web sites may turn to other means of funding continued operation, including the display of advertisements from less-than-reputable ad networks/brokers, which may introduce malicious advertisements (malvertising) using exploit kits to compromise a computer through the web browser, to other schemes, such as mining cryptocurrency in the web browser to generate revenue for the site operator. Another thing to consider is that many customers do not want programs which facilitate the theft of intellectual property on their computers and networks. The reasons for this can range from the mundane (wanting to avoid legal liability) to concerns about more draconian actions: In Russia, software piracy can be treated as a criminal matter by the Russian federal tax police, and having pirated software on computers can lead to the arrest and imprisonment of employees, harsh financial penalties the dissolution of a company and/or the forced transfer of a company's assets. This happened to several non-profits who were accused of pirating Microsoft software in Russia. To their credit, Microsoft quickly responded by providing the Russian non-profits with legal licenses for its software, and now makes its software free for use by non-profits in Russia in order to prevent this from happening again. While that is an extreme kind of scenario, it does show how regimes can use software piracy as a pretext to shut down organizations of which they do not approve. From time to time, ESET has talked about some of the malware using and abusing peer-to-peer networks, probably the most famous of which is the Conficker worm. Some additional examples of malware which make use of peer-to-peer networks, can be found on ESET's VirusRadar site: MSIL/Antinny Python.Filecoder.P (ransomware targeting .torrent files) Win32/AutoRun.IRCBot.FE Win32/Skopvel Win32/TrojanDownloader.Agent.PUC Win64/GoBot2 Further information about risks, as well as mitigations, can be found on ESET's WeLiveSecurity blog: Limewire, free software and the for-fee membership BitTorrent family susceptible to DRDoS attacks Mac malware spread disguised as cracked versions of Angry Birds, Pixelmator and other top apps How black hats misuse the torrent ecosystem for fun and profit As previously stated, ESET is not the software police. ESET does, however, have a stated goal of protecting its customers from threats, and those threats can come from many sources, including peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, applications and their associated web sites. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky *ESET holds no position on Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Hello, This question has now been completely answered, and the topic is now closed. Forum members are reminded that creating multiple accounts is against the forum's Terms of Use. Furthermore, creation of new accounts in an attempt to circumvent moderation, including temporary or permanent bans, will result in the forum moderation team taking whatever actions they deem appropriate at their sole discretion. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky