How to tell if a program is malicious?

[Statik]

Hey all,

 

So I'm scrolling though my task manager just seeing what's all running on my laptop, and I've come across a few things that I don't exactly know what they are. Malwarebytes, Windows Defender, and Superantispyware all show some of them as clean, but is there a way to verify? For instance I have a program called "SHA1:0x608020e9" and opening the file location it's "Intel_PIE_Service.exe" in a folder in my System32 File Repository folder.

 

How do I verify things like this, and verify I don't have any sneaky malware/cryptominers, etc?

[minibois]

1 minute ago, Statik said:

How do I verify things like this, and verify I don't have any sneaky malware/cryptominers, etc?

VirusTotal is probably the closest thing to what you're asking about

[Statik]

2 minutes ago, minibois said:

VirusTotal is probably the closest thing to what you're asking about

So if a file comes up good there chances are it's good?

 

Just because upon googling "Intel PIE Service" there's a few hits for Cryptominer/spyware, but nothing pops it. It's also been on my computer since May which is right around the time when I picked up my latpop, and it saw very little use until July.

[minibois]

Just now, Statik said:

So if a file comes up good there chances are it's good?

 

Just because upon googling "Intel PIE Service" there's a few hits for Cryptominer/spyware, but nothing pops it. It's also been on my computer since May which is right around the time when I picked up my latpop, and it saw very little use until July.

I am not sure how the virus scanners in VirusTotal do their thing, but it would be pretty naive from them to just simply assume "bad name = bad program".

It's entirely possible it's a real program, just with virus impersonations for it.

[Nathanpete]

VirusTotal allows you to upload the files to their website where a server on their end will scan the files using various anti-viruses and then their own custom tools to determine what kind of malware the program could hold. Very new (like under 2-3 days old) viruses won't get detected, but you have had this thing since May so if is malicious it is 100% in the virustotal database. 

[startrek03]

4 minutes ago, minibois said:

I am not sure how the virus scanners in VirusTotal do their thing, but it would be pretty naive from them to just simply assume "bad name = bad program".

It's entirely possible it's a real program, just with virus impersonations for it.

They basically send your file through a pipeline of malware and virus scanners.

[ifniteggg]

Yo, so I have the same exact problem. I have a ROG Zephyrus. Since we have the same program, I doubt it should be a program, because I too saw very little activity. At the same time, I too agree that I got it very recently. So, this shouldn't be an issue!