Suspicious
ExplorerPatcher installer flagged as PUA riskware due to patching behaviour and low-tier detections.
f689c068d61e7339ef…0c11a84ae8The 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.
Only a single tier-1 engine (GData) reports riskware with an explicit PUA flag; the remaining detections are low-trust. Behavioural artefacts match the documented operation of ExplorerPatcher rather than malware. No malicious children, sandbox verdicts, or contacted hosts exist. The combination of unsigned status, offensive MITRE techniques, and installer hint places the sample in the PUA category rather than clean or malicious.
Each signal cites a concrete token from the evidence the arbiter saw — engine name, MITRE technique, signer string, or an exact count.
GData tier1 detection Win64.Riskware.ExplorerPatcher.B with adwarePua flag
popularThreatLabel pua.explorerpatcher and 6 offensiveTechniques (T1055, T1547.001)
common_new prevalence (136 submitters) with hasMaliciousChild=false
unsigned with triggeredHeuristics MalwareTips.Synth.ProcessInjection
- Only 1 tier-1 malicious detection with explicit PUA label
- Common_new prevalence across 136 submitters
- No malicious sandbox or child verdicts
- Unsigned binary
- Process injection into explorer.exe
- Low-trust engine detections
Block or allow based on policy; the file is a known PUA rather than malware.
explorerpatcher corroborated by 2 sources
- VT (75 engines)explorerpatcher
- MT AI Engineexplorerpatcher
What this file did when executed
This file was detonated in 1 sandbox and its runtime behaviour was observed.
Adversary techniques mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
- C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher\ep_setup.exe
- C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher\ExplorerPatcher.IA-32.dll
- C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher\ExplorerPatcher.amd64.dll
- C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher\ep_gui.dll
- C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher\ep_dwm_svc.exe
Files this sample writes at runtime
This file drops 10 children at runtime. None are currently flagged malicious in our cache.
- 097dfaea778000b9e102…8737ccNever scannednever seen before
- d75b29ad314d6af52c2f…0996c0Never scannednever seen before
- ae8e7f0c0d935a698def…857a6bNever scannednever seen before
- b5ff17b52dbce8fcbbde…dd77a8Never scannednever seen before
- 6320d4893083d4112b55…d78a32Never scannednever seen before
- 6796c85256c35d8ebf1f…ad5fa8Never scannednever seen before
- ae26d6ef7c8f6b533585…61ba45Never scannednever seen before
- fe677e93e6ebcb4b0268…ec197cNever scannednever seen before
- 97a47364127595870353…cab70fNever scannednever seen before
- b8c8fcb5a8d288eaa20f…d89351Never scannednever seen before
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.
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\system32\taskkill.exe" /f /im explorer.exe
4 detections across 75 engines
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.
How often this file shows up in the wild
Lots of people are uploading this but it's recent — typical of newly-released legitimate software. Low prior for malware.
Forensic fingerprint
- File name
- ep_setup.exe
- Size
- 11.57 MB
- MIME type
- (unknown)
- Detected type
- Win32 EXE
- SHA-256
- f689c068d61e7339efc6eba266d9674b41c5ef96dff0cc90ab0ff80c11a84ae8
- MD5
- f4a34ca503c245db745e74636c307273
- SHA-1
- 6aca0ee445be70085dc626a90d12796d164dfafa
- PE imphash
- 60043cdc8ec75b3db9d74a95586b1bb7
- First seen (VT)
- 5/19/2026, 3:17:59 AM
- Last analysis (VT)
- 5/26/2026, 8:09:06 AM
- First scan (MalwareTips)
- 5/26/2026, 8:40:14 AM
- Last scan (MalwareTips)
- 5/26/2026, 8:40:14 AM
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.