*Urgent* - Update Malwarebytes ASAP - Bugged update causes massive memory overusage/crashes

January 27, 2018, 01:43 PM

A broken automatic update released overnight/early this morning by Malwarebytes led to massive memory overusage and lots of system crashes.

A fix was just released.

If you use Malwarebytes, it's important that you update ASAP, to resolve the issue. You can do this by right-clicking on the Malwarebytes system tray icon and choosing "Check for Updates", or by merely rebooting your computer.

(You may have noticed that Malwarebytes' Real-Time Protection was suddenly disabled on your system. That will resume once the fixed update is applied.)

From Malwarebytes:

quote:
Earlier this morning, we published a protection update that caused connection issues for many of our customers. As a side effect of the web protection blocks, the product also spiked memory usage and possibly caused a crash. We have triaged this issue and pushed a protection update that resolves it.

If the update does not resolve the issue automatically for you, please shut down web protection, check for protection updates, and restart your computer.

The root cause of the issue was a malformed protection update that the client couldn't process correctly. We have pushed upwards of 20,000 of these protection updates routinely. We test every single one before it goes out. We pride ourselves on the safety and accuracy of our detection engines. To say I am heartbroken is an understatement.

quote:
How to resolve/verify that you have the fixed update package:

-Update package version 1.0.3803 or higher contains the fix
-To resolve, simply reboot your machine. In some cases, a second reboot may be needed.
-To verify you have this update, go to Settings -> About -> Update package version: 1.0.3803

January 27, 2018, 01:50 PM

jehzsa

Thank you.

January 27, 2018, 01:57 PM

smschulz

I noticed an issue first thing this morning too.
thanks (and I am a Malwarebytes Partner too

January 27, 2018, 02:01 PM

Zecpull

I did 4 different scans and it would not turn on Web Protection . This is a Huge mistake by them. I have never had trouble before. I knew something was wrong when it said I was out of Memory. I have over 16gb of ram, and it is not normal to run low. I finally went to their FB page and there was a message.

January 27, 2018, 02:14 PM

RogueJSK

Yeah, I wasted an hour this morning trying to hunt down why my laptop crashed, and then trying to get Real-Time Protection to work correctly. Then I ran across a blurb on the Malwarebytes forum.

So I just disabled Malwarebytes until I saw the fix was released a few hours later.

January 27, 2018, 02:16 PM

Tim335

Thanks for the heads up. I have been messing around with a buggy system all day. I noticed real time protection was off, but I never assumed it was Malwarebytes causing the crashes.

Updated and fixed!

January 27, 2018, 02:36 PM

flashguy

My Malwarebytes has totally vanished from my computer. I used to have it. I just downloaded and installed it again, with the latest updates.

flashguy

January 27, 2018, 03:43 PM

Eponym

I got bit by the bug this morning while watching Justified. Everything locked up. Each time I rebooted, the memory usage climbed to 100% and everything locked up again, so I couldn't connect to the Internet. After nearly 2 hours of trying stuff, I figured out it was Malwarebytes and was able to uninstall it. Then I saw the message on their website.

January 27, 2018, 03:49 PM

Jelly

Malwarebytes... bites all right! Loaded it on a desk top 2 weeks ago that ran fine other than a yahoo issue. It would not even go on line again with Malwarebytes. Two hours later and no Malwarebytes I was back to where I started!

January 27, 2018, 04:16 PM

Pipe Smoker

I have Malwarebytes on my Mac. I don’t use real time protection – just run a scan (~25 seconds) prior to each backup, so I know that my backups are clean. I’ve never seen a a report other than, “Congratulations, you are clean”.

I receive an email from Malwarebytes when an update is available to download, but haven’t received one recently, so I’m guessing that the bug affects only PCs.

January 27, 2018, 04:18 PM

erj_pilot

Thanks for posting, Rogue. Got it fixed on my office system...need to check my Media Server.

"If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24

January 27, 2018, 04:23 PM

mke229

Thank you. I battled it for an hour, glad to know it wasn't just me.

January 27, 2018, 06:02 PM

ZSMICHAEL

Thank you.

January 27, 2018, 06:10 PM

Thayer

Thanks for posting, just got mine settled back down.

January 27, 2018, 06:23 PM

ggile

Ran into this problem this morning and discovered my MBAM was the culprit. I ran their diagnostic program and emailed it to their support. They got back in touch with me in short order explaining what happened and that a fix had been added to their updates. Ran the update and problem solved.

January 30, 2018, 01:48 PM

ensigmatic

Turns out they'd released an update to fix the bug(s) in the update they'd pushed to fix the previous update.

From one of my security newsletters:

quote:

Malwarebytes Had a Busy Weekend Updating its Updates
(January 27 & 29, 2018)
Over the weekend, Malwarebytes pushed out two fixes for a recent update that was causing problems for users. Late last week, Malwarebytes pushed out an update to its Endpoint security products. Users reported that the update was consuming as much as 90 percent of their machines' RAM and CPU. Shortly after those reports emerged, Malwarebytes pushed out another update, but that one caused users' machines to crash on reboot. Malwarebytes released yet another update to fix that problem.