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Malwarebytes & VPNs

Is there any reason why Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium flags up—and blocks—IP addresses that appear to be linked to my VPN (Private Internet Access)? Is this some cynical attempt to get me to switch to its own VPN product instead?

—Nicole J Villegas

THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: There is a long-standing issue between IP addresses used by Private Internet Access and Malwarebytes’ real-time protection component. There’s little help to be had from Malwarebytes—PIA is flagged as being one of several third-party apps (many of them rival security products) that can cause problems with MBAM’s Web Protection, one of its four real-time protection components. Malwarebytes’ solution is to disable Web Protection, which results in a frequent nag that it’s not enabled. You can turn this off via Settings > Notifications (uncheck ‘When real-time protection is turned off’), but that would mean you wouldn’t be notified if other components were disabled, something that can happen at boot time.

It’s tempting to think that this is cynical behavior on Malwarebytes’ part, but the issue is with many of the IP addresses that PIA uses. Make a note of any blocked IP addresses, which can be reviewed directly from MBAM itself: click Detection History and switch to the History tab, and you’ll see a list of IP addresses labeled as ‘compromised’. Paste these into the AbuseIPDB website (www.abuseipdb. com), and you’ll see that many have been reported for abuse, some more than others. You may find these IP addresses are blocked elsewhere on your system— check your router’s logs.