Ago Promise Technology

[Litespeed53]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me what Ago promise technology is. I understand its to do with drives etc.

The reason I ask is that all of a sudden I have a startup item running on my machine.

File name: qukofe.exe
Display name: Ago
Description: Scorch Debug Pass
publisher: Promise Technology Inc

Its installation date is way back in 2010 but I have never seen it running before.

Can disable or delete from within Windows Defender Software Explorer but it immediatey restarts itself.

Is it safe to leave or can I get rid of it?

Thanks.

 

[richc46]

Welcome
I checked into this and I think that what you should do is run a full anti virus scan, then download the free malwarebytes, update it and run a full scan.
A cursory examination indicates that this may be malware or worse. Do not get concerned until the results of the two tests are known. Good luck

 

[Litespeed53]

Thanks rich,

Have already run McAfee which is a paid for and up to date subscription and it found nothing.

Will update and do a full Malwares scan now.

Just checking about on my machine and found that Windows Firewall had been switched off - but I do not remember doing it. I have restarted the firwall which is blocking a connection on startup apparently its task scheduler engine trying to access something. Also on startup Task Scheduleer engine is trying to access IP addresses that McAfee is blocking.

Curiouser and curiouser........

Be back later with Malwares scan result.

 

[wither 3]

Promise Technology is for ATA RAID Controllers and Subsystems.

According to this- Support

it may be installed on systems we use.

From the name of the file, it could be a debugger for Scorched 3D if you ever had it installed.

 

[Litespeed53]

Okie dokie..update!

Almost as soon as I had logged off from here a few hours ago McAfee automatically removed a trojan called "GenericExploit!ksr

At that point I though I might have solved the problem only to find that Windows Defender kept freezing when I tried to open software explorer.

I ran a quick scan of fully updated Malwares andit found another trojan this one was Trojan.VUPX.PTI1 which malwares also removed for me.

A new full malwares scan has not to date revealed any other problems.

So to summarise the above trojans seemed to infect my system from the internet, installed in AppData and set to run at startup. On startup Windows firewall was disabled and task scheduler engine was used to attempt to connect to various ip addresses.

I spotted the startup entry in CCleaner and removed it from there but it immediately replaced itself. Same thing with software explorer in Windows defender.

McAfee paid subscription did not find or identify it as malware but Malwares did the job.

The trojan was pretending to be from Promise Technologies Inc...I assume so in any case.

Moral of the story?

1. Consider using a separate user account for extensive web-surfing or if you "need" to visit dubious websites, that way at least you'll find it harder to infect your whole system.

2. You really need several lines of defense: firewall, anti-virus, anti-malware and you need to make sure they are all up to date and actually properly configured. I may have accidentally switched off my firewall in this case but I was at least partially protected by McAfee running in the background.

3. Regularly check startup items - I tend to use CCleaner for this - am wondering if Win Patrol might be better?

 

[Yard Dog]

I love WinPatrol .

 

[wither 3]

If you're still experiencing problems, you could try a system restore. I've found that to work for some of these kinds of viruses.