Brian, I've never used Rufus before but I've looked at the executable that is downloadable from their site (the first one, rufus-4.15.exe) and I assure you that it is not malicious. It's possible that Windows Defender is throwing some kind of false positive (although simply running the executable did not produce any alerts here) but I'd need more precise information, in order to determine what exactly is happening.
Could you please document the exact steps one needs to perform, in order to reproduce your results? Which executable did you download? When did the alert pop up? What parameters did you select?
The thing's UI is awful, BTW - apparently you have to click on what looks like a dropdown listbox, in order to open a file selection menu, WTF.
VessOnSecurity
npub1gx…7tun6
2026-10-24 06:58:12 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…gd4v
Author Public Key
npub1gxa39sc7wtpmatdx9rkplkplaquyug2vfhk23dl54slsnmuzf45sh7tun6Seen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2026-10-24 06:58:12 UTCEvent JSON
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"pubkey": "41bb12c31e72c3beada628ec1fd83fe8384e214c4deca8b7f4ac3f09ef824d69",
"created_at": 1792825092,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
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"proxy",
"https://infosec.exchange/@bontchev/117494585282425710",
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"content": "Brian, I've never used Rufus before but I've looked at the executable that is downloadable from their site (the first one, rufus-4.15.exe) and I assure you that it is not malicious. It's possible that Windows Defender is throwing some kind of false positive (although simply running the executable did not produce any alerts here) but I'd need more precise information, in order to determine what exactly is happening.\n\nCould you please document the exact steps one needs to perform, in order to reproduce your results? Which executable did you download? When did the alert pop up? What parameters did you select?\n\nThe thing's UI is awful, BTW - apparently you have to click on what looks like a dropdown listbox, in order to open a file selection menu, WTF.",
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}