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Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit Driver Error Code 20026 message

I have updated the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware installation to version 2.0 during the beta trial that the company ran, and upgraded to the final version using my own license once it was released.

 

 

So far I have been more than satisfied with the new program version and the capabilities that Malwarebytes added to it.

There is however one slight issue that I have experienced from day one of using the new version of the popular security software: the anti-rootkit component is not working.

Whenever I try to run a scan, I get an error message shortly thereafter that informs me that the anti-rootkit driver could not be loaded.

I can then select to run the scan without anti-rootkit detection, or cancel it completely.

The full error message:

malwarebytes anti malware rootkit driver error

Error: Malwarebytes was unable to load the Anti-Rootkit Driver. Error code: 20026

Do you want to continue the scan without anti-rootkit support?

Before you can select yes or no here, a second error message pops up.

scanner failed error code 20026

Scanner Failed with Error Code: 20026

I'm not the only user of the program who gets these error messages. If you check out the Malwarebytes forum, you notice that quite a few users get the same error message when they start a scan.

Some even get it on system start, which I do not thankfully.

The reason for this is that Malwarebyte's Anti-Rootkit driver does not support encrypted volumes. The only exception here is TrueCrypt which is supported, but if you are running a different encryption software such as Microsoft BitLocker or DiskCryptor (which I use) then you will run into the error message when Malwarebytes Anti-Malware tries to launch the Anti-Rootkit scanner.

To the best of my knowledge, like MBAR, MBAM 2.0's rootkit scanning has limited support for TrueCrypt encrypted volumes only. No other disk encryption software is supported. I will be speaking to the Developers and will update this information as needed.

Workaround

There is not much that you can do at the moment to resolve the situation on your end. The only option would be to switch to TrueCrypt encrypted volumes, but that is not really something that most users may want to do as it involves quite the operation (turn off the current encryption, run True Crypt, use it to encrypt the volumes).

The best option currently is to disable the scan for rootkits in Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. This is done in the following way:

  1. Open the program on your system and bring the window of it to the front.
  2. Click on Settings > Detection and Protection.
  3. Disable "Scan for rootkits".

This takes care of the error message that you get during scans. It is recommended to use other anti-rootkit software for the time being.

Programs like TDSSKillerAvast's aswMBR or Gmer are all on-demand scanners that you can use for the time being.

It is not clear if Malwarebytes will resolve the issue and make the anti-rootkit module compatible with other encryption programs.

This article was first seen on ComTek's "TekBits" Technology News

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