Reason Security Engine
Reason Security Engine is an unwanted process in Windows systems that’s related to the RAV Antivirus program – a software commonly regarded as potentially unwanted. If you’ve noticed the Reason Security Engine process, you likely have RAV Antivirus on your PC and need to uninstall it.
Users who have noticed the Reason Security Engine in their computer’s Task Manager typically report that the unusual process is using up a lot of memory and CPU, thus leading to performance slowdowns and system sluggishness. While you can try to manually quit that process in the Task Manager, it will likely be automatically launched again soon after you quit it, or after you restart your PC. Either way, this won’t really resolve the issue, which is why you must find the root of the problem and eliminate it. Typically, the Reason Security Engine problem is associated with a potentially unwanted program known as RAV Antivirus. While this program is technically not malware, it’s also not something that should be kept on your computer for a variety of reasons, including the high resource consumption that’s usually associated with it.
Is Reason Security Engine a virus?
Reason Security Engine isn’t a virus process – it is, however, a process connected to the potentially unwanted RAV Antivirus program. If you want to keep your PC safe and protected against viruses, you should get rid of Reason Security Engine and RAV Antivirus.
In and of itself, neither the Reason Security Engine process nor the RAV Antivirus program is harmful or dangerous. However, RAV Antivirus is, at best, a janky and very outdated security tool with poor optimization and features that are in no way helpful to your system. At worst, an intrusive piece of software that is prone to spamming you with fake alerts and that has a lot of vulnerabilities that can be exploited by actual malware which could, in turn, expose your system and data to harm. For these reasons, if you’ve noticed either the Reason Security Engine process or the RAV Antivirus on your PC, make sure to clean your system from any sort of undesirable software that may put your cybersecurity at risk.
The good news is that, if you aren’t noticing any other strange processes in your system or any other unusual symptoms and instances of strange PC behavior, then your computer is probably safe and not infected by any actual malicious software. Even if you don’t remember how RAV antivirus has entered your computer, this doesn’t mean that your PC has been infected. Undesirable apps such as RAV Antivirus are usually distributed using installation bundles. The unwanted software is added to the installation file of a legitimate and, typically, free program that a lot of users are likely to willingly download. The installation of the added undesirable software is usually enabled by default, so if the user doesn’t notice and disable it, the unwanted app would get installed together with the main program. This is how a lot of users get all sorts of PUP (potentially unwanted programs) on their computers without realizing it. RAV Antivirus is typically distributed in the same way. The good news is that it’s usually easy to get rid of such software and in the guide posted below, we will show you exactly how to delete RAV Antivirus and, in turn, permanently get rid of the Reason Security Engine process.
SUMMARY:
| Name | Reason Security Engine |
| Type | PUP |
How to get rid of Reason Security Engine?
To get rid of Reason Security Engine:
- Uninstall RAV Antivirus and any other potentially unwanted programs from Apps & features settings section.
- Quit the Reason Security Engine process and delete its location folder.
- Clean the Startup items list, the Task Scheduler, the Services list, and the System Registry.
- Get rid of any remaining Reason Security Engine or RAV Antivirus files.
Completing those four steps should usually result in the full deletion of anything related to the Reason Security Engine process or the RAV Antivirus PUP. To make sure that you correctly complete each of the steps, make sure to check out the detailed instructions we’ve shown below.
Detailed Reason Security Engine removal guide
Step 1
Open the Start Menu/click in the Start Menu search bar and type Apps & Features. Next, scroll down to see the list of apps and programs that are installed on your PC and look for anything named RAV Antivirus or Reason Security Engine. If you notice an app or apps with those names, select them, select Uninstall, and proceed to uninstall the potentially unwanted program/s by following the prompts. If the uninstaller asks you if you’d prefer to keep on your computer something related to the unwanted program, make sure to refuse that offer. Also, some unwanted apps try to trick you into installing other undesirable software when you are running their uninstallers – be sure to carefully read all the options in the uninstaller so that you don’t end up getting some other PUP on your PC.
Step 2
Open the Task Manager with the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keyboard combination, then visit the Processes tab and there look for the Reason Security Engine process. When you find it, right-click it, click Open File Location, then return to the Task Manager (without closing the file location folder), right-click the process again, click Quit Process, and click Quit again to confirm. Now go back to the file location folder, delete everything that’s in it, and then delete the folder itself. If there are any items that can’t be deleted right now, leave them as they are for now, and, once you finish the rest of the guide, try to delete them again.
You should also look for any processes named RAV Antivirus or anything similar and do the same thing with them and their file location folders. Additionally, if you notice any other sketchy and suspicious processes in the Task Manager, go to their file location folders, scan the contents of those folders with the next free online malware scanner, and if anything is flagged as potentially unsafe, quit the related process and delete the entire file location folder.
Step 3
We recommend putting your PC in Safe Mode for the next steps, so this is what you should do now. Here are our instructions on How to enter Safe Mode on a Windows PC if you need help with this.
Step 4
Now, it is time to visit different sections and settings in your system where there may be remnants of the RAV Antivirus/Reason Security Engine. Go to each system section by typing the items/names shown below in the Start menu search and then hit Enter to open the first search results. After that, complete the instructions we’ve provided for each item:
Services – When the Services window opens, look through the services listed in it, searching for anything named RAV Antivirus or Reason Security Engine. If you find an item or items that have such names, right-click them, click Properties, and then set the Startup type to Disabled. Do this with every services item that you think is linked to the Reason Security Engine process and/or the RAV Antivirus PUP.
Task Scheduler – In the Task Scheduler, first click the Task Scheduler Library folder shown in the top-left, and then look at the tasks shown in the list. Again, search for items named Reason Security Engine or RAV Antivirus. If such items are found, right-click them, select Delete, and confirm the action.
Msconfig – Select the Startup tab in the System Configuration window, and then, if you see a button named Open Task Manager, click it. When you get a list of the system’s startup items, look carefully through them and if you see entries named Reason Security Engine or RAV Antivirus, disable them.
Regedit.exe – Allow the app to make changes to your system by clicking Yes when your permission is required and then, when the Registry Editor shows up, press Ctrl + F. In the search bar that pops up, type RAV Antivirus, perform the search, delete the first item that gets found, and search again. In this way, make sure that all items that come up for this search are deleted. Then do the same with search phrases “RAV”, “Reason Security”, and “Reason Security Engine”.
After you’ve made sure that everything related to those four search phrases is deleted, manually go to the following three Registry locations by expanding the folders to the left. In each of those locations, look for items with unusual names that seem to be randomly generated (for instance, items with names like this: “903urj09fd0923ut09ik3e90turr”). Tell us in the comments if you notice anything like this, and we will tell you what to do with it.
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Random Directory.
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Main
Step 5
Lastly, there are a couple of folders where there may be file remnants from the RAV Antivirus PUP, so you should check for such remnants and delete what you may find. Before that, however, type Folder Options in the Start Menu, open the first result, click the View tab, and there check the Show hidden files, folders, and drives option. After that, click OK so that the changes are saved. Now, type each of the following (together with the “%” symbols) in the Start Menu search and open the respective folders. In all of those folders, except %Temp%, delete only the most recently created files (anything created since the time you think RAV Antivirus got installed on your PC). In the Temp folder, you must delete everything – since there will likely be thousands of items there, the easiest way to delete them all at once is to press Ctrl + A while in the folder, then press Del, and confirm the deletion.
- %LocalAppData%
- %ProgramData%
- %WinDir%
- %AppData%
- %Temp%
if you click the process and “open file location” their is in an uninstall feature the works. The program was not listed in my Add Remove Programs.
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