What is watchdog.exe?

watchdog.exe is usually located in the 'c:\downloads\' folder.

Some of the anti-virus scanners at VirusTotal detected watchdog.exe.

If you have additional information about the file, please share it with the FreeFixer users by posting a comment at the bottom of this page.

Vendor and version information [?]

watchdog.exe does not have any version or vendor information.

Digital signatures [?]

watchdog.exe is not signed.

VirusTotal report

60 of the 73 anti-virus programs at VirusTotal detected the watchdog.exe file. That's a 82% detection rate.

ScannerDetection Name
Acronis suspicious
Ad-Aware Trojan.AgentWDCR.QNW
AegisLab Trojan.Win32.Agent.4!c
AhnLab-V3 Trojan/Win32.Agent.C2742987
Alibaba TrojanDropper:Win32/Agent.d9d4751d
ALYac Trojan.Agent.gen
Antiy-AVL Trojan[Dropper]/Win32.Agent
Arcabit Trojan.AgentWDCR.QNW
Avast Win32:Trojan-gen
AVG Win32:Trojan-gen
Avira TR/AD.GoWatchdog.ledfg
BitDefender Trojan.AgentWDCR.QNW
Bkav W32.WannaMine.Worm
CAT-QuickHeal Trojan.IGENERIC
Comodo Malware@#oxanqjbjpk3d
CrowdStrike win/malicious_confidence_100% (W)
Cybereason malicious.9a7c7d
Cylance Unsafe
Cyren W32/Trojan.ZKIW-7364
DrWeb Trojan.SpyBot.775
Emsisoft Trojan.AgentWDCR.QNW (B)
Endgame malicious (moderate confidence)
ESET-NOD32 Win32/Agent.TDX
F-Prot W32/Agent.NBAU
F-Secure Trojan.TR/AD.GoWatchdog.ledfg
FireEye Generic.mg.4f551cb9a7c7d241
Fortinet W32/Agent.TDX!tr
GData Win32.Trojan.Agent.FIKMZO
Ikarus Trojan.Win32.Agent
Invincea heuristic
Jiangmin TrojanDownloader.Agent.fmmn
K7AntiVirus Trojan ( 0053329c1 )
K7GW Trojan ( 0053329c1 )
Kaspersky Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Agent.bjwkfq
MAX malware (ai score=100)
MaxSecure Trojan.Malware.73812769.susgen
McAfee Generic.bur
McAfee-GW-Edition BehavesLike.Win32.Sdbot.tc
Microsoft Trojan:Win32/Occamy.C!bit
MicroWorld-eScan Trojan.AgentWDCR.QNW
NANO-Antivirus Trojan.Win32.Gen8.fiydqa
Paloalto generic.ml
Panda Generic Malware
Qihoo-360 Win32/Trojan.Spy.155
Rising Dropper.Agent!8.2F (CLOUD)
SentinelOne DFI - Suspicious PE
Sophos Troj/Agent-BAFK
Symantec Trojan Horse
Tencent Win32.Trojan-dropper.Agent.Pfjp
Trapmine malicious.moderate.ml.score
TrendMicro TROJ_WATCHER.RCB
TrendMicro-HouseCall TROJ_WATCHER.RCB
VBA32 TrojanDropper.Agent
VIPRE Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT
ViRobot Trojan.Win32.S.Agent.1435136
Webroot W32.Trojan.Gen
Yandex Trojan.DR.Agent!oCcNl64qMZc
Zillya Dropper.Agent.Win32.382362
ZoneAlarm Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Agent.bjwkfq
Zoner Trojan.Win32.75916
60 of the 73 anti-virus programs detected the watchdog.exe file.

Sandbox Report

The following information was gathered by executing the file inside Cuckoo Sandbox.

Summary

Successfully executed process in sandbox.

Summary

{
    "file_created": [
        "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe"
    ],
    "file_recreated": [
        "\\??\\NUL",
        "\\Device\\KsecDD"
    ],
    "dll_loaded": [
        "winmm.dll",
        "C:\\Windows\\System32\\advapi32.dll",
        "kernel32.dll",
        "KERNEL32.DLL",
        "cryptbase.dll",
        "advapi32.dll",
        "ntdll.dll",
        "ws2_32.dll"
    ],
    "file_opened": [
        "C:\\Users\\cuck\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\f118e52a73227b85fbb0cb7d202c3753916e518c516286c441a2dc92ede1f023.bin",
        "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wshqos.dll",
        "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WSHTCPIP.DLL",
        "C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\en-US\\KERNELBASE.dll.mui",
        "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wship6.dll"
    ],
    "regkey_opened": [
        "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\TestApp"
    ],
    "file_written": [
        "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe"
    ],
    "file_exists": [
        "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe"
    ],
    "command_line": [
        "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe"
    ],
    "file_read": [
        "C:\\Users\\cuck\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\f118e52a73227b85fbb0cb7d202c3753916e518c516286c441a2dc92ede1f023.bin"
    ],
    "regkey_read": [
        "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\Nls\\Language\\InstallLanguageFallback",
        "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\GRE_Initialize\\DisableMetaFiles",
        "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Control Panel\\Desktop\\PreferredUILanguages",
        "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\MUI\\UILanguages\\en-US\\Type",
        "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Wow6432Node\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Windows Error Reporting\\WMR\\Disable",
        "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\MUI\\UILanguages\\en-US\\AlternateCodePage",
        "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Control Panel\\Desktop\\MuiCached\\MachinePreferredUILanguages",
        "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\Nls\\CustomLocale\\EMPTY"
    ]
}

Dropped

[
    {
        "yara": [],
        "sha1": "becd31acf5ed0396433b7d836fe0d4c3fae29169",
        "name": "f118e52a73227b85_windefender.exe",
        "filepath": "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe",
        "type": "PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows, UPX compressed",
        "sha256": "f118e52a73227b85fbb0cb7d202c3753916e518c516286c441a2dc92ede1f023",
        "urls": [],
        "crc32": "D1AF7461",
        "path": "\/home\/hpuser\/.cuckoo\/storage\/analyses\/2400\/files\/f118e52a73227b85_windefender.exe",
        "ssdeep": null,
        "size": 1435136,
        "sha512": "801fa55da6c539984da48b8dc695ffc2e4cd7f2e546d72e87b441e13cc26a7122ad40a0367e9c41bb4e91655c739cd6016a440e751dd291e980ecf22e792cc66",
        "pids": [
            2436
        ],
        "md5": "4f551cb9a7c7d24104c19ac85e55defe"
    }
]

Generic

[
    {
        "process_path": "C:\\Users\\cuck\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\f118e52a73227b85fbb0cb7d202c3753916e518c516286c441a2dc92ede1f023.bin",
        "process_name": "f118e52a73227b85fbb0cb7d202c3753916e518c516286c441a2dc92ede1f023.bin",
        "pid": 2436,
        "summary": {
            "file_created": [
                "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe"
            ],
            "file_recreated": [
                "\\??\\NUL",
                "\\Device\\KsecDD"
            ],
            "dll_loaded": [
                "winmm.dll",
                "C:\\Windows\\System32\\advapi32.dll",
                "kernel32.dll",
                "KERNEL32.DLL",
                "cryptbase.dll",
                "advapi32.dll",
                "ntdll.dll",
                "ws2_32.dll"
            ],
            "file_opened": [
                "C:\\Users\\cuck\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\f118e52a73227b85fbb0cb7d202c3753916e518c516286c441a2dc92ede1f023.bin",
                "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wshqos.dll",
                "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WSHTCPIP.DLL",
                "C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\en-US\\KERNELBASE.dll.mui",
                "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wship6.dll"
            ],
            "command_line": [
                "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe"
            ],
            "file_written": [
                "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe"
            ],
            "file_exists": [
                "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe"
            ],
            "file_read": [
                "C:\\Users\\cuck\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\f118e52a73227b85fbb0cb7d202c3753916e518c516286c441a2dc92ede1f023.bin"
            ],
            "regkey_read": [
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\Nls\\Language\\InstallLanguageFallback",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\GRE_Initialize\\DisableMetaFiles",
                "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Control Panel\\Desktop\\PreferredUILanguages",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\MUI\\UILanguages\\en-US\\Type",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Wow6432Node\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Windows Error Reporting\\WMR\\Disable",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\MUI\\UILanguages\\en-US\\AlternateCodePage",
                "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Control Panel\\Desktop\\MuiCached\\MachinePreferredUILanguages",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\Nls\\CustomLocale\\EMPTY"
            ]
        },
        "first_seen": 1568047985.75,
        "ppid": 2456
    },
    {
        "process_path": "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe",
        "process_name": "windefender.exe",
        "pid": 2500,
        "summary": {
            "file_opened": [
                "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wshqos.dll",
                "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WSHTCPIP.DLL",
                "C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\en-US\\KERNELBASE.dll.mui",
                "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wship6.dll"
            ],
            "regkey_opened": [
                "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\TestApp"
            ],
            "file_recreated": [
                "\\Device\\KsecDD"
            ],
            "regkey_read": [
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\Nls\\Language\\InstallLanguageFallback",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\GRE_Initialize\\DisableMetaFiles",
                "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Control Panel\\Desktop\\PreferredUILanguages",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\MUI\\UILanguages\\en-US\\Type",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Wow6432Node\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Windows Error Reporting\\WMR\\Disable",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\MUI\\UILanguages\\en-US\\AlternateCodePage",
                "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Control Panel\\Desktop\\MuiCached\\MachinePreferredUILanguages",
                "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet001\\Control\\Nls\\CustomLocale\\EMPTY"
            ],
            "dll_loaded": [
                "winmm.dll",
                "C:\\Windows\\System32\\advapi32.dll",
                "kernel32.dll",
                "KERNEL32.DLL",
                "cryptbase.dll",
                "advapi32.dll",
                "ntdll.dll",
                "ws2_32.dll"
            ]
        },
        "first_seen": 1568047986.0332,
        "ppid": 2436
    },
    {
        "process_path": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\lsass.exe",
        "process_name": "lsass.exe",
        "pid": 476,
        "summary": {},
        "first_seen": 1568047985.4844,
        "ppid": 376
    }
]

Signatures

[
    {
        "markcount": 1,
        "families": [],
        "description": "The executable uses a known packer",
        "severity": 1,
        "marks": [
            {
                "category": "packer",
                "ioc": "UPX 2.90 [LZMA] -> Markus Oberhumer, Laszlo Molnar & John Reiser",
                "type": "ioc",
                "description": null
            }
        ],
        "references": [],
        "name": "peid_packer"
    },
    {
        "markcount": 1,
        "families": [],
        "description": "Drops a binary and executes it",
        "severity": 2,
        "marks": [
            {
                "category": "file",
                "ioc": "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe",
                "type": "ioc",
                "description": null
            }
        ],
        "references": [],
        "name": "dropper"
    },
    {
        "markcount": 2,
        "families": [],
        "description": "The binary likely contains encrypted or compressed data indicative of a packer",
        "severity": 2,
        "marks": [
            {
                "entropy": 7.8849722360341,
                "section": {
                    "size_of_data": "0x0015e200",
                    "virtual_address": "0x00229000",
                    "entropy": 7.8849722360341,
                    "name": "UPX1",
                    "virtual_size": "0x0015f000"
                },
                "type": "generic",
                "description": "A section with a high entropy has been found"
            },
            {
                "entropy": 0.99964311206281,
                "type": "generic",
                "description": "Overall entropy of this PE file is high"
            }
        ],
        "references": [
            "http:\/\/www.forensickb.com\/2013\/03\/file-entropy-explained.html",
            "http:\/\/virii.es\/U\/Using%20Entropy%20Analysis%20to%20Find%20Encrypted%20and%20Packed%20Malware.pdf"
        ],
        "name": "packer_entropy"
    },
    {
        "markcount": 3,
        "families": [],
        "description": "The executable is compressed using UPX",
        "severity": 2,
        "marks": [
            {
                "section": "UPX0",
                "type": "generic",
                "description": "Section name indicates UPX"
            },
            {
                "section": "UPX1",
                "type": "generic",
                "description": "Section name indicates UPX"
            },
            {
                "section": "UPX2",
                "type": "generic",
                "description": "Section name indicates UPX"
            }
        ],
        "references": [],
        "name": "packer_upx"
    },
    {
        "markcount": 1,
        "families": [
            "jorik"
        ],
        "description": "Creates known Jorik Trojan Files, Registry Keys and\/or Mutexes",
        "severity": 3,
        "marks": [
            {
                "category": "file",
                "ioc": "C:\\Windows\\windefender.exe",
                "type": "ioc",
                "description": null
            }
        ],
        "references": [],
        "name": "trojan_jorik"
    },
    {
        "markcount": 2,
        "families": [],
        "description": "Detects the presence of Wine emulator",
        "severity": 3,
        "marks": [
            {
                "call": {
                    "category": "system",
                    "status": 0,
                    "stacktrace": [],
                    "last_error": 0,
                    "nt_status": -1073741511,
                    "api": "LdrGetProcedureAddress",
                    "return_value": 3221225785,
                    "arguments": {
                        "ordinal": 0,
                        "module": "ntdll",
                        "module_address": "0x77b90000",
                        "function_address": "0x0018fd88",
                        "function_name": "wine_get_version"
                    },
                    "time": 1568047985.89,
                    "tid": 2124,
                    "flags": {}
                },
                "pid": 2436,
                "type": "call",
                "cid": 46
            },
            {
                "call": {
                    "category": "system",
                    "status": 0,
                    "stacktrace": [],
                    "last_error": 0,
                    "nt_status": -1073741511,
                    "api": "LdrGetProcedureAddress",
                    "return_value": 3221225785,
                    "arguments": {
                        "ordinal": 0,
                        "module": "ntdll",
                        "module_address": "0x77b90000",
                        "function_address": "0x0018fd88",
                        "function_name": "wine_get_version"
                    },
                    "time": 1568047986.1272,
                    "tid": 1676,
                    "flags": {}
                },
                "pid": 2500,
                "type": "call",
                "cid": 46
            }
        ],
        "references": [],
        "name": "antiemu_wine"
    }
]

Yara

The Yara rules did not detect anything in the file.

Network

{
    "tls": [],
    "udp": [
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "192.168.56.255",
            "offset": 662,
            "time": 6.2295351028442,
            "dport": 137,
            "sport": 137
        },
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "224.0.0.252",
            "offset": 5190,
            "time": 6.1812310218811,
            "dport": 5355,
            "sport": 51001
        },
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "224.0.0.252",
            "offset": 5518,
            "time": 4.1748549938202,
            "dport": 5355,
            "sport": 53595
        },
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "224.0.0.252",
            "offset": 5846,
            "time": 6.193736076355,
            "dport": 5355,
            "sport": 53848
        },
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "224.0.0.252",
            "offset": 6174,
            "time": 4.7773289680481,
            "dport": 5355,
            "sport": 54255
        },
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "224.0.0.252",
            "offset": 6502,
            "time": 3.052109003067,
            "dport": 5355,
            "sport": 55314
        },
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "239.255.255.250",
            "offset": 6830,
            "time": 4.7292199134827,
            "dport": 1900,
            "sport": 1900
        },
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "239.255.255.250",
            "offset": 15512,
            "time": 4.1934449672699,
            "dport": 3702,
            "sport": 49152
        },
        {
            "src": "192.168.56.101",
            "dst": "239.255.255.250",
            "offset": 19704,
            "time": 6.2764830589294,
            "dport": 1900,
            "sport": 53598
        }
    ],
    "dns_servers": [],
    "http": [],
    "icmp": [],
    "smtp": [],
    "tcp": [],
    "smtp_ex": [],
    "mitm": [],
    "hosts": [],
    "pcap_sha256": "6c226e6e6ea8e24367df49a77b8f5bea84691c1d14a59824a3f2b55cde3776c5",
    "dns": [],
    "http_ex": [],
    "domains": [],
    "dead_hosts": [],
    "sorted_pcap_sha256": "102b8b807f380d9f29e6dadce0fc55370ac6d09a8b717ce3b71becc93fee1824",
    "irc": [],
    "https_ex": []
}

Screenshots

Screenshot from the sandbox

watchdog.exe removal instructions

The instructions below shows how to remove watchdog.exe with help from the FreeFixer removal tool. Basically, you install FreeFixer, scan your computer, check the watchdog.exe file for removal, restart your computer and scan it again to verify that watchdog.exe has been successfully removed. Here are the removal instructions in more detail:

  1. Download and install FreeFixer: http://www.freefixer.com/download.html
  2. Start FreeFixer and press the Start Scan button. The scan will finish in approximately five minutes.
    Screenshot of Start Scan button
  3. When the scan is finished, locate watchdog.exe in the scan result and tick the checkbox next to the watchdog.exe file. Do not check any other file for removal unless you are 100% sure you want to delete it. Tip: Press CTRL-F to open up FreeFixer's search dialog to quickly locate watchdog.exe in the scan result.
    Red arrow point on the unwanted file
    c:\downloads\watchdog.exe
  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the scan result and press the Fix button. FreeFixer will now delete the watchdog.exe file.
    Screenshot of Fix button
  5. Restart your computer.
  6. Start FreeFixer and scan your computer again. If watchdog.exe still remains in the scan result, proceed with the next step. If watchdog.exe is gone from the scan result you're done.
  7. If watchdog.exe still remains in the scan result, check its checkbox again in the scan result and click Fix.
  8. Restart your computer.
  9. Start FreeFixer and scan your computer again. Verify that watchdog.exe no longer appear in the scan result.
Please select the option that best describe your thoughts on the removal instructions given above








Free Questionnaires

Other files also named watchdog.exe

watchdog.exe (8 votes)

Hashes [?]

PropertyValue
MD54f551cb9a7c7d24104c19ac85e55defe
SHA256f118e52a73227b85fbb0cb7d202c3753916e518c516286c441a2dc92ede1f023

Error Messages

These are some of the error messages that can appear related to watchdog.exe:

watchdog.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

watchdog.exe - Application Error. The instruction at "0xXXXXXXXX" referenced memory at "0xXXXXXXXX". The memory could not be "read/written". Click on OK to terminate the program.

watchdog.exe has stopped working.

End Program - watchdog.exe. This program is not responding.

watchdog.exe is not a valid Win32 application.

watchdog.exe - Application Error. The application failed to initialize properly (0xXXXXXXXX). Click OK to terminate the application.

What will you do with watchdog.exe?

To help other users, please let us know what you will do with watchdog.exe:



Comments

Please share with the other users what you think about this file. What does this file do? Is it legitimate or something that your computer is better without? Do you know how it was installed on your system? Did you install it yourself or did it come bundled with some other software? Is it running smoothly or do you get some error message? Any information that will help to document this file is welcome. Thank you for your contributions.

I'm reading all new comments so don't hesitate to post a question about the file. If I don't have the answer perhaps another user can help you.

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