@Eric-Reiss ,

The algorithms used at VirusTotal are unfairly biased toward automatically flagging any installer built with NSIS (because some viruses masquerade as NSIS installers). Notepad++ is not going to stop using the NSIS installer, so that means that VirusTotal will likely continue to false-flag it.

Per these results, there isn’t currently a false-flag on the official v8.5.3 64bit installer: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/5ed5d73a10561c63301ed2f56dd62402b0748880c93a03b147ed09de0864a783

So if you download it from the URL that the report scanned (https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases/download/v8.5.3/npp.8.5.3.Installer.x64.exe – which is the official download URL for v8.5.3), then it’s safe.

@Andrew-Non said in NSIS:HacktoolX-gen Malware/Avast:

What gives?

The “malware scanners” often confuse the NSIS installer/uninstaller signatures as being malware, because some malware uses NSIS installer/uninstaller. When enough users vote the notepad++ executable or installer/uninstaller safe, such warnings usually go away.

(That’s one of my biggest frustrations with such anti-malware ratings: they give an application a black mark without investigating first. Which makes them useless, because then people just learn to ignore their warnings since they give so many false positives)

@Gary-Collier said in License Fee:

installation of unpaid and unlicensed software is prohibited.

Who (allegedly) prohibits it? If it is an entity within your company, perhaps a more fruitful avenue would be to ask them to clarify their position on Free and Open Source Software, as the policy you were taught appears ambiguous. If the intent is to claim that it is prohibited by law, then the training material should be clarified, as it can be misunderstood to encompass Free and Open Source Software (installation of which is most certainly not prohibited by law).

Note that not all free software is Free and Open Source Software. Some products are free for personal use but require a license when used in business, government, etc. The trainers might have intended to indicate that it is your responsibility to be sure any software you install does not require a license to be used in the applicable context, even if it would be free for your personal use. Clarification would still be in order.

@Robbert-Jan-van-der-Meer

Then don’t upload it?!!
And storing passwords in plain text in files is not what you should do anyway.

@Bgnm-Indo, what did you do to clean your system?.
Thanks

@zeta-orionis ,

Viruses often masquerade themselves as installers (or embed themselves into standard installer executables or msi’s, like the NSIS installer that Notepad++ uses). So sometimes virus scanners associate the “signature” of normal/safe code of an NSIS installer as part of that virus, which then means the antivirus will flag any NSIS-based installer, like Notepad++. Usually they get enough complaints of false-positives that they fix their definitions pretty quickly. But it doesn’t always happen.

(Either that, or you didn’t download the Notepad++ from an official source – either from the “announcements” thread in this forum, directly from https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/, or from https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/ . Anyplace else is not supported and not guaranteed or warranteed.)

@Terry-R Thank you for answering my questions.
Though my company recently took away our PC administrator right, I can see the files which I was allow to view in the windows explore. So I guess that I do not need to tun Notepad++ as “admin” in order to be able to search key words crossing files as I always do.

I do not need to search any network drivers mapped.

The original user appears to have deleted their account.

Had they stayed, my response would have been that privacy is addressed in the FAQ. And as mentioned there, it is simple enough to sign up for an account with one or more of the OAUTH providers that gives the OAUTH provider no private information, so that the OAUTH provider cannot provide this Community Forum with any private information.

For future readers: changing the password does nothing, because there is no username/password login available. (The forum software will not allow us to hide that setting)

@uraniumcookie ,

That is an impersonation/spoof site. Do not trust downloads of Notepad++ from anyplace but notepad-plus-plus.org or github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus

@rdipardo said in Compare plugin detected as malicious by both JoeSandbox and Crowdstrike Falcon:

…it unpacks portable versins of sqlite3 and git2, which it needs to function; but these are flagged as potentially malicious “stowaways”:

Persistence and Installation Behavior

Drops PE files

Source: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\7za.exe
File created: C:\Users\user\Desktop\extract\ComparePlugin\sqlite3.dll

Source: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\7za.exe
File created: C:\Users\user\Desktop\extract\ComparePlugin\git2.dll

Source: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\7za.exe
File created: C:\Users\user\Desktop\extract\ComparePlugin.dll

Yes. It appears the sqlite3.dll and git2.dll files are the ones actually causing the Hybrid-Analysis sandbox to register the whole .zip as malicious as well. Not sure the best way to test them to verify they are good…

@serge-adourian Don’t download NPP from an unofficial site

@imspecial said in VirusTotal.Com Analysis of npp.8.1.9.2.Installer.x64.exe Reports "Detects executables signed with stolen, revoked or invalid certificates":

Maybe this has something to do with this?

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malicious-notepad-plus-plus-installers-push-strongpity-malware/

If that is the case, then that is on the user for not downloading it from official/reputable places and has nothing to do with Notepad++ really, as it has no control on where the user get these files from.

Actually I was just addressing what I quoted above. I thought it would be a good idea to get your feedback on the file’s hash and the location of the download which I included in the original post.

Thx

@peterjones Thanks!

@pjamesburwell ,

Sorry, I don’t recall in my decade or more of using Notepad++ ever seeing an always-open-in-administrator-mode right-click option.

If you want that to always be the case, you might be able to use Windows OS techniques to accomplish it: right click on the Notepad++.exe executable, and go to the Compatibility tab, and select the appropriate checkbox on that tab. I think that will make it so Notepad++ will always open in Admin mode, even called from a shortcut or a right-click context “open file”/“open file with” action. But Admin mode is controlled by the OS, not by the application, so the final word has to come from the OS.

@PeterJones
or by using the newer way (which is so much easier) of just having the image in your copy buffer and pasting it in your reply, which will host the image on our server, so IT departments will be less likely to block it – and that way it would still be a valid image

264174d9-dacd-4da7-9f4e-39cac0b30413-image.png

Thanks Peter

@Michael-L-E said in Checksums:

Can anybody tell me why the SHA1, SHA256, and MD5 checksums aren’t available to compare with the downloads?

There does appear to be SHA256 info available for the 8.1.3 version. Look here, about half way down the site’s page. Titled Integrity & Authenticity validation.

Terry

@Mike-Geubel

Not 100% sure of what you’re asking, but it sounds like you want Notepad++ to be the shepherd of access to other things on the PC it is installed upon?

If so, it is not reasonable. That’s the operating system’s job. You should look into setting that up via the OS.

@Jnoel111 ,

Last-modified dates can be changed for reasons that don’t seem like the file being “modified” to mere mortals.

I found no documentation on this change

The executables and DLLs that ship with Notepad++ (including the updater and the plugin list) generally get updated with every release.

v7.8.7 was released June 8, 2020 . The zipfile version of the v7.8.7 downloads shows dates of 6/4/2020 for those files. But, like I said, the install process itself, or otherwise touching the files even if they weren’t modified, may have changed the dates.

If you’re worried that your files have been changed from the official distribution, you could download the zipfile version (make sure to grab the correct 32bit or 64bit, depending on your current installation) from the official download page, and do a comparison of the “modified” files vs the files in the zipfile – or just overwrite the files in your installation with the files from the zipfile to be sure.

Or just grab the most recent v7.9.5 download and install the newest version to get the most recent enhancements and bug fixes.