Taiwebs is not safe
So, you have probably heard of Taiwebs. It's a site to get cracked and/or patched software. It was listed on the r/Piracy megathread as well. That means it's probably safe, right? Well, I don't think so.
The Beginning
I wanted the Windows 10 start menu on my Windows 11 PC so bad. I had heard of Start11. It apparently lets you customize your start menu to your heart's content. I wanted to test it out first to see if I would find it useful or not. But it costs $10 for one active install, so it better be good. Anyway, after that I went to the Taiwebs site and got the patch installed.
The Investigation
I extracted the ZIP right after it was done. But Windows Defender flagged it as a keygen. I didn't think anything of it at first. I allowed the folder and extracted the patch. But the patch icon looked... familiar. I launched it, and the interface looked similar to the FileCR patch. I then started to get suspicious. I loaded it up on Triage, and it gave me a score of 7/10 — quite malicious. I then loaded up the ZIP on Windows Sandbox. After that, I installed the FileCR patch as well to compare the two. And my assumption was correct. They are the exact same. Don’t believe it? Here’s the proof:
They have the same file size
They have (almost) identical files
They have the same patch
I even scanned both of the patches using VirusTotal, just to be 100% sure.
The patches have the same file hash
I think that proves that Taiwebs has the same patch as FileCR.
Alright, what's the issue though?
FileCR has been flagged for containing malware. So Taiwebs just repackaging the malware (which has triggered 50/73 antiviruses) doesn't give them the best look.
What can I do about it?
Please don't use the site. There are other sites to find cracked and/or patched software. There's no point in using a site that openly distributes malware to its users. So please, just ignore the site completely.
Credits
Old owner - David (wrote the original Rentry.)
New / Current owner - Clara (is maintaining it.)
(With <3)