What is Jucheck.exe; keep it or remove?

Anonymous

Hello. Sorry if this is an old question, but I can’t find a good answer to this yet.

My computer is a couple weeks old, I have Windows 7 Home Premium, and when I turned it on today I got a request to allow “jucheck.exe” to run. It didn’t really give any information on the window, so I told it “No”. After some research, I’ve seen people say that if the file is in Program Files then it is fine, but if it is in Windows\System 32 then it is dangerous. The request for it to run said that it was in Windows\System 32 and I searched for it and Jucheck.exe showed up in both Program Files and Windows\System 32; both identical, by the looks of them, same size (422kb / 432,128 bytes) , dates, etc. I also found it in C:\Windows\SysWOW64, though it was a different size (377 KB / 386,872 bytes). I scanned the files with McAfee and it came back clean, so I don’t really know what to think about it.

So, should I be concerned? Should I get rid of it? And how might I go about it?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

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LemP 74,970 Volunteer Moderator

@elfisho --

jucheck.exe is the name of the program that checks for Java updates. Unfortunately, however, malware can also use the same name.

On my Win 7 Pro x64 system, I have only one instance of jucheck.exe, and it is in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jucheck.exe

It's a different size than yours -- 499 KB (511,872 bytes) -- and probably a newer version, if you haven't let Java update in a while (mine is version 2.1.60.19; you can right-click on your file, select Properties and then the "Details" tab).

You've copied an old response from 2011, so I don't know if you have scanned the files you found. If you have scanned them with an up to date antivirus, then you're probably OK.

If you're concerned, submit the file(s) to https://www.virustotal.com/ where they will be checked automatically (in real time) by a large collection of antimalware tools.

If I were you, I'd do the following:

Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features and uninstall anything that starts with "Java" (the current version is Java 7 Update 60)
Go to http://java.com/en/download/uninstallapplet.jsp and click the "Agree and Continue" button
If any older versions of Java are found, they will be uninstalled. Then download the installer stub for the current version.
Before you install the current version, check in the locations where you previously had found jucheck.exe and if any of the files are still there, delete them.
Run the file you downloaded; this will download the full installer and then start the installation process. Be sure to UNCHECK the boxes that will otherwise install the Ask Toolbar.

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Anonymous

Hello PyreSR – Welcome to Microsoft Answers Community.

The Jucheck.exe is part of Sun® microsystems components, it is

in fact the Sun® Java UpdateChecker Module. If any antivirus

program is complaining about the file, please paste the virus name.

As far as known, it shall not be a virus.

I hope you find this information useful and if you need any further assistance,

please feel free to contact me and let me know.

I hope this information was helpful…

Have a nice day…

Best regards,

Fisnik

Itknowledge24.com

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Anonymous

Jucheck

I have had many PCs, Laptops, etc. Until recently, about 6-8 months ago, I get this jcheck.exe pop up, telling Java update is available. There a number of easy things you have to do to safeguard your machine, what I did/do are:

I go the source, Oracle (who make Java), and see if there is indeed an update available - at least 5 times during my jucheck.exe plague.

2. Only recently this has begun to appear, at least everu 4-5 days; asked myself, Java have never released so many updates.

3. If there is indeed an update available, then download from the main, Sun/Oracle website, there are two useful sites, https://www.oracle.com/index.html and https://search.oracle.com. You need only check these once or twice, and will find jucheck.exe is perhaps harmful; I am not an expert and for me, it is better this way.

Conclusion. It is a mystery to me why common, highly rated safety software, have not yet picked it up?? either way, safe or not - simply, they should send an email to all subscribers, who pay a lot of money, telling us whether it is safe or harmful.

I hope this helps, takes minutes, could have you a lot in time, money and aggravation; IO found after about 10 checks that go update about once a month, directly at above sites.

Good Luck

Prakash

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117 additional answers

Anonymous

2013-01-22T10:59:40+00:00

Hi Folks,

Check http://www.itknowledge24.com/blog/topics/process-explorer/ for more information about different background processes.

Have a nice day…

Sincerely,

Fisnik Hasani

Itknowledge24.com - Follow on Twitter: http://twitter.com/itknowledge24

and Like on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITknowledge24.verified
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Anonymous

2013-01-21T16:03:53+00:00

jucheck.exe is harmful software that invades your computer normally through harmful java ads or programs(Ex. Facebook games) on websites. For reasons unknown this does not seem to be pointed out. There is a Valid jucheck.exe that is required for Sun Systems Java Application to function properly, that is why this file is used to invade peoples computers and bypass anti-virus programs. Since Java is a valid program required to run half of the websites on the Internet and Av ignores its programs, jucheck.exe is something hackers can use as a back door into your computer.

After months of checking and talking to friend who like myself have been learning programming and other PC related things in colleges i have come to the conclusion that the reason this is not made more public is because there does not seem to be any way to avoid it other than not going to any website that contains Ads, banners, or applications using Java. Sadly that would mean avoiding 80% of the internet.

Also in order to be far minded i feel it necessary to point out that there is a similar hack associated with Adobe Java, however it seems that if you update Adobe it comes with a file that prevents the associated duplicate files from being created. Not a 100% guarantee, but after updating websites that were known to have these malicious files no longer affected the computer.

I hope this helps people in some way as i have actually devoted a lot of time into looking at the actually cause of infection instead of just removal tools.
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