# Malwarebytes evidently attacked by a virus.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/malwarebytes-evidently-attacked-by-a-virus/807667
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [January 28, 2018, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/malwarebytes-evidently-attacked-by-a-virus/807667 "2018-01-28T18:29:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2018, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/malwarebytes-evidently-attacked-by-a-virus/807667/1 "2018-01-28T18:29:21Z")
This is not exactly a “Mundane Pointless” item, but I couldn’t figure where else to put it.
I have a Dell Computer, with Windows 7 (with all the upgrades) and 8 gigs of RAM. Yesterday I got a message that memory was low, and I’d better free up some. They weren’t kidding, as the computer immediately was slowed down until it was basically unusable. After restarting several times, I was able to open a program “System Explorer” that shows the memory usage of all programs currently running (there are a lot!). Anyway, it found the culprit - a part of the Malwarebytes suite of software, named “MBAMService.exe” was using over 6 gigs of memory instead of its normal 279,000 K of memory. Additionally, I was unable to either kill the process or delete the program, receiving an “access denied” message whenever this was tried.
I was able to get things running again by using my goto solution to most problems, the “System Restore” routine, and that fixed the problem, with all running OK now.
I have noticed that Malwarebytes is a program that is often mentioned here as a good defense against malware, but that it had spectacularly failed in this case. I was wondering if any of you folks had run into this problem, and what your solution had been.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2018, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/malwarebytes-evidently-attacked-by-a-virus/807667/2 "2018-01-28T18:39:04Z")
I recommend that you update Malwarebytes. From [BleepingComputer.com](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malwarebytes-update-released-to-fix-high-cpu-and-memory-usage-in-mbamservice-exe/), “An update pushed by Malwarebytes today for their Malwarebytes Anti-Malware product has caused a lot of problems for those who use their program. This new protection update caused mbamservice.exe to consume a lot of memory and upwards to 90% of the computer’s CPU. A new update has been pushed that resolves these issues.” That was posted yesterday.
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### Author:  [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2018, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/malwarebytes-evidently-attacked-by-a-virus/807667/3 "2018-01-28T18:39:46Z")
It wan’t affected by malware. It was a buggy update.
> **[Malwarebytes gets defective update that slows computers -- here's how to fix it](https://betanews.com/2018/01/27/malwarebytes-slow/)**
>
> Malwarebytes is great software, designed to protect Windows, Mac, and Android devices. As someone who fixes computers for both friends and family, I often rely on the free version to detect malware on Windows machines -- it is a great tool to keep in...
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### Author:  [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/malwarebytes-evidently-attacked-by-a-virus/807667/4 "2018-01-28T18:47:27Z")
I ran into the exact same problem yesterday.
I couldn’t get to task manager so I rebooted, then same thing happened, so next reboot I brought up task manager and left it running sorted by mem. I noticed the malwarebytes icon in the lower right like it ws trying to do something, but it never used up too much mem once task mgr was visible to me.
I did not do a restore and it has not happened again.
These are the things I did that I thought might have allowed something to get in:
1 - Went to [Forbes.com](http://Forbes.com) for an article and turned off adblock plus for that site
2 - Downloaded an open source html editor 2 weeks ago (bluegriffon)
3 - Downloaded an open source graphics engine 2 weeks ago (jmonkeyengine)
Did you do anything recently similar to any of these?
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### Author:  [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2018, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/malwarebytes-evidently-attacked-by-a-virus/807667/5 "2018-01-28T18:49:42Z")
> [@Wolf333](#):
>
> It wan’t affected by malware. It was a buggy update.
>
> [Malwarebytes gets defective update that slows computers -- here's how to fix it](https://betanews.com/2018/01/27/malwarebytes-slow/)
Thanks, this is good news.
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### Author:  [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2018, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/malwarebytes-evidently-attacked-by-a-virus/807667/6 "2018-01-28T18:52:51Z")
Thanks, folks. That was interesting and fast! That’s me, always at the forefront of screw-ups. I guess I’d better upload the fix ASAP.