File verdict·Decided by the MT AI Engine
Our call

Safe

Signed NIUBI Partition Editor Free Edition installer is safe; single low-trust engine flag and sandbox heuristics are likely false positives for disk utility behavior.

Verified · Chongqing NIUBI Technology Co.
Trust score85High trust
MT AI confidence · 82%
NPE_free.exe
12.3 MB
f5ae105cb0351be137cdb1ad117b
Antivirus engines
1 of 75 flagged
Code signing
Signed by Chongqing NIUBI Technology Co.
Age
First seen 4mo ago
MT AI Engine · our arbiter

The verdict, reasoned out.

Not a rules engine. The MT AI Engine reads every signal we collected, weighs them against history, and commits to an answer.

82%Confidence
High
Reasoning

With zero tier-1 malicious detections and only Bkav (low-trust) flagging generically, this aligns with false positive patterns. The verified signature from Chongqing NIUBI Technology Co. matches the self-install to NIUBISoft paths and outbound to niubi-tech.com/hdd-tool.com. Offensive MITRE techniques and synthesis heuristics fire due to driver install, system access, and direct IP resolution (CDNs/Google), common in partition editors. No malicious children, sandbox consensus, or external intel tips malicious. Medium prevalence supports commodity software.

Key signals · 5

Each signal cites a concrete token from the evidence the arbiter saw — engine name, MITRE technique, signer string, or an exact count.

  1. Bkav (low_trust) 'W32.AIDetectMalware' only malicious out of 70 reporting

  2. signing.signer='Chongqing NIUBI Technology Co.', verified=true

  3. behaviour.processes include '"C:\Program Files\NIUBISoft\NIUBI Partition Editor Free Edition\npe.exe"'

  4. behaviour.contactedUrls='http://niubi-tech.com/cgi-bin/versions.py'

  5. engines.tier1Malicious=0, tier1ReportedClean=17

Points in its favour
  • Verified Authenticode signature
  • Proper self-install to NIUBI Partition Editor path
  • Contacts official niubi-tech.com/hdd-tool.com domains
  • 17 tier-1 engines report clean
  • Medium prevalence (359 submissions, 314 sources)
Points against
  • Single low-trust engine detection (Bkav)
  • High-severity heuristic for process injection (T1055)
  • Heuristic flags LSASS access (credential dump shape)
  • Direct IP contacts without DNS (15 IPs)
  • No prior signer history (signerStats.found=false)
What to do

This is the legitimate NIUBI Partition Editor Free Edition. Safe to install and use for disk management. Download from official site to avoid tampered copies.

Sources disagree

1 contradiction resolved by the scoring engine

Only low-trust / heuristic engines flagged this file
1 engine from the heuristic / generic-AI set flagged it. No tier-1 engine agreed.
Verdict treated these as likely false positives.
Runtime behaviour

What this file did when executed

This file was detonated in 1 sandbox and its runtime behaviour was observed.

MITRE ATT&CK
24

Adversary techniques mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

T1010T1012T1014T1027T1036T1055T1059T1071T1082T1083T1112T1115T1125T1129T1134T1222T1485T1497T1529T1539T1542T1542.003T1547.009T1548
Spawned processes
15
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\RuntimeBroker.exe -Embedding
$(unnamed)
"C:\Users\<USER>\Desktop\file.exe"
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
$(unnamed)
"C:\Program Files\NIUBISoft\NIUBI Partition Editor Free Edition\npe.exe"
$(unnamed)
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --single-argument https://www.hdd-tool.com/tutorials.html?install
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\system32\services.exe
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted -p
$(unnamed)
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end --do-not-de-elevate --single-argument https://www.hdd-tool.com/tutorials.html?install
+7 more processes captured.
Network activity
16
IP addresses15
  • 150.171.109.118
  • 104.21.62.217
  • 150.171.73.13
  • 104.26.13.42
  • 172.67.151.113
  • 188.166.63.236
  • 150.171.109.116
  • 216.239.34.181
  • 206.189.5.60
  • 50.28.107.46
+5 more
URLs1
  • http://niubi-tech.com/cgi-bin/versions.py
Persistence
1
Indicators1
  • MDA_NTDRV
Filesystem & mutexes
34
Files written15
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nsvE59E.tmp
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\System.dll
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\ioSpecial.ini
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\modern-wizard.bmp
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\InstallOptions.dll
+10 more
Files deleted15
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\InstallOptions.dll
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\ioSpecial.ini
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\modern-wizard.bmp
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\System.dll
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\nskE5AE.tmp\
+10 more
Mutexes created4
  • cversions.3.m
  • macrorit.mde
  • macrorit.mw
  • Global\OneSettingQueryMutex+compat+encapsulation
Dropped payload

Files this sample writes at runtime

This file drops 10 children at runtime. None are currently flagged malicious in our cache.

10 unseen
  • b7bb7f23fb83f9a6c028a1f769Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 1a29dfc359942a78dae3abb3d6Never scanned
    never seen before
  • d5fb09c97517a54cb63c2d3e94Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 5237ffe1150b279fde5a732606Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 847952dbaa195a631d74894820Never scanned
    never seen before
  • a1390a78533c47e55cc39dd0e1Never scanned
    never seen before
  • af937d94c19c7d9deab1faa2f8Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 987582c690e221c80d4857f9abNever scanned
    never seen before
  • 76b8da4e687ce7d46365084e19Never scanned
    never seen before
  • fc64b31426ff0c2814c02f17d8Never scanned
    never seen before
No researcher-database hits
External threat-intel sources were not collected for this scan.
Signature matches

YARA + heuristic rules that fired

A researcher-curated or high-severity heuristic rule matched this sample. These rules target specific malware families and are near-definitive.

4 synthesis
MITRE ATT&CK profile
Persistence× 1Defense evasion× 1Cred access× 1C2× 1
MalwareTips synthesis rules
Our heuristics on VT data + sandbox behaviour
  • PersistenceScheduledTaskmedium

    Sandbox flagged persistence indicators (registry Run keys / services / scheduled tasks).

    Evidence
    MDA_NTDRV
  • ProcessInjectionhigh

    MITRE T1055 (Process Injection) observed — CreateRemoteThread / APC / reflective-DLL injection. The payload is being smuggled into a legitimate process to bypass AV hooks.

    Evidence
    C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
  • CredentialDumpermedium

    Sandbox observed process activity targeting LSASS (Windows credential store). Legitimate software has no business reading LSASS memory — this is Mimikatz-shape behaviour.

    Evidence
    C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe
  • DirectIpC2medium

    Sample contacted 15 external IP address(es) and zero domains. Benign software virtually always uses DNS; no-DNS direct-IP C2 is a strong malware indicator because it bypasses reputation systems and dodges domain-based blocklists.

    Evidence
    150.171.109.118 · 104.21.62.217 · 150.171.73.13
Antivirus engine breakdown

1 detection across 75 engines

1 malicious0 suspicious74 clean
Tier-117 engines
0flag
Top commercial AVs (low FP rate)
Tier-238 engines
0flag
Mainstream engines with mixed FP rates
Low-trust20 engines
1flag
Heuristic / generic-AI engines (high FP rate)
Bkav
malicious
W32.AIDetectMalware
Hash f5ae105cb035… cross-referenced against 75 AV engines via our AV network.
PE forensics

Section entropy & packers

Section-level entropy and packer detection from the PE header. Nothing suspicious here — entropy is within the normal range for unpacked code.

ent 8.00Unpacked
Section entropy5 sections
.text
6.40
.rdata
5.04
.data
5.22
.ndata
0.00
.rsrc
5.88
0.0Packed threshold 7.28.0
Prevalence

How often this file shows up in the wild

Moderate prevalence — neither rare nor common. No strong prior applies.

Medium
Unique uploaders
314
Hundreds of people have uploaded this — common.
Total submissions
359
Includes repeat uploads by the same source.
First seen by VT
4mo ago
Feb 15, 2026
Prevalence quadrant
Rare · New
Targeted malware lives here
Common · New
Just-released software
Rare · Old
Niche or internal tooling
Common · Old
Trusted legitimate binaries
File identity

Forensic fingerprint

File biography
First seen (VT)
2/15/2026, 2:21:44 AM
First seen (MalwareBazaar)
Last analysis (VT)
4/26/2026, 6:43:03 AM
Scanned here
4/27/2026, 3:30:26 AM
File name
NPE_free.exe
Size
12.27 MB
MIME type
(unknown)
Detected type
Win32 EXE
SHA-256
f5ae105cb0351be1375012c5bd0464aff334fbe262ae8234fdf064cdb1ad117b
MD5
9646f6c899c5c4b6bd274864e209a405
SHA-1
9cac864a2d9c6840477685d4107a92548bebfb14
PE imphash
57e98d9a5a72c8d7ad8fb7a6a58b3daf
First seen (VT)
2/15/2026, 2:21:44 AM
Last analysis (VT)
4/26/2026, 6:43:03 AM
First scan (MalwareTips)
4/27/2026, 3:30:26 AM
Last scan (MalwareTips)
4/27/2026, 3:30:26 AM
Code signer
Chongqing NIUBI Technology Co.verified
Behavior tags
overlaypeexesigned
Community classification

Reviews & malware reports(0)

Tell the community what you saw. Tag the sample — Trojan, Adware, False Positive — and share what the file did on your system. Your report helps confirm or dispute the AV verdict.

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Scanned by
harlan4096Staff
Files are processed in a streaming pass-through — MalwareTips never stores the binary on its servers. Only the scan result (hash, detections, verdict) is retained so the next person who scans the same file gets an instant answer. If you ran this file on your computer and are worried, scan your system with an up-to-date antivirus and change critical passwords from a different device.