Home Possibly Unwanted Program Guardbox

Guardbox

Posted: August 19, 2015

Threat Metric

Threat Level: 1/10
Infected PCs: 1,220
First Seen: August 19, 2015
Last Seen: March 23, 2023
OS(es) Affected: Windows


The Guardbox program from IncrediMail, Inc. is promoted at www.Guardbox.net as a valuable addition to your cyber defenses. The Guardbox program is offered to users for free and is said to complement the Google Safebrowsing, and the Mozilla Phishing Protection found in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. The selling points for the Guardbox software are that it can:

  • Provide extended protection against malware-infested sites;
  • Notify the user of phishing and fraud content;
  • Block ingoing and outgoing requests to botnet servers;

There are no new releases for the Guardbox software, and the project is discontinued. Unfortunately, users may install old versions of Guardbox via freeware bundles. Researchers are aware of several versions of Guardbox that may be available for installation and feature numbers including 1.9.0.35, 1.12.1.8 and 1.12.1.8. You should note that the main executable for the Guardbox software is not trusted, and PC users may receive a security alert that may mention any of the following:

  • Toolbar.AQQ
  • Adware.Conduit.411
  • PUA/SearchProtect.Gen
  • PUP.Optional.SearchProtect
  • Win32.Trojan.Searchprotect.Hrep
  • not-a-virus:AdWare.Win32.Agent.johz

The Guardbox has a bad reputation among security vendors because it is known to generate ads from uncertified advertisers which contradict its agenda to secure your PC. IncrediMail, Inc. might use the Guardbox app to read data such as your Internet history, hardware, and software configuration to allow affiliated marketers to load personalized offers in your browser. The Guardbox program might run as GuardboxApp.exe from C:\Users\%username%\appdata\Local\Guardbox and users may have problems removing it. Experts classify Guradbox as a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) due to its limited functionality, suspicious behavior and difficulty for removal. We suggest users employing the services of a trustworthy anti-spyware solution to delete the Guardbox app safely.

Technical Details

File System Modifications

Tutorials: If you wish to learn how to remove malware components manually, you can read the tutorials on how to find malware, kill unwanted processes, remove malicious DLLs and delete other harmful files. Always be sure to back up your PC before making any changes.

The following files were created in the system:



%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Guardbox\1.1.1.1\GuardboxApp.exe File name: GuardboxApp.exe
Size: 10.05 MB (10058704 bytes)
MD5: 82f63d7d6812f68a211ba8cfef4e6f22
Detection count: 13
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Guardbox\1.1.1.1
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: March 22, 2016

More files

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\AppDataLow\Software\Guardbox

Additional Information

The following directories were created:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Guardbox%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\GuardboxData
Loading...