Reason Security Engine

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Reason Security Engine Service

The Reason Security Engine service is a process linked to the RAV Endpoint Protection antivirus program that will probably show up in your Task Manager if you have this antivirus installed on your computer. We thoroughly researched this process, and it appears that it’s not a harmful one, but it’s also not a process that you’d want to allow to run in your system. Most users who encounter it report excessive CPU and Memory usage caused by the Reason Security Engine service. Additionally, quitting the process doesn’t solve the issue because it gets relaunched soon after.

If your PC is currently getting bogged down by this process, and you are not sure how to deal with it, the information on this page and the guide posted further down will help you.

Reason Security Engine

The good news is that the Reason Security Engine process isn’t ran by a Trojan or another piece of malicious software, so there’s no need to worry. However, you’ll still need to find a way to stop this process and delete any software that’s linked to it.

As we said, the RAV Endpoint Security, also known as the ReasonLabs Application and Reason Cybersecurity, is what’s probably behind this process. This isn’t a virus or some other malicious program, but rather, it’s an outdated security tool that installs via file-bundles and spams the user with false positive malware warnings. For this reason, the program is regarded as unwanted and users typically prefer to remove it.

Since RAV Endpoint Security and Reason Security Engine are related, deleting the former is required to get rid of the latter. However, uninstalling the outdated antivirus will not always cause the Reason Security Engine process to go away, and usually some additional steps will need to be performed. In our guide below, you’ll find instructions on everything you need to do to get rid of both the unwanted program and the process related to it.

Reason Security Engine high CPU usage

Almost all users dealing with this process report a high CPU usage from the Reason Security Engine even though it doesn’t seem to do anything useful in the system. This might lead some to think that this is a disguised cryptomining tool, since such behavior is typical for this type of malware programs, but we didn’t find any confirmation from cybersecurity vendors that confirms this suspicion. What’s more likely is that the excessive CPU (and memory) usage coming from the Reason Security Engine process is due to the outdated nature of the antivirus program that’s running it.

The problem is that, if you go to the file location of the process and try to delete the files stored there, you’ll most likely get an error message stating that those files are being used by another program. The key to resolving this Paragraph 22 situation is to go to clean up your Registry, Services, Task Scheduler, and other system settings from stuff added there by the unwanted RAV antivirus. We’ve thoroughly explained how to do all this in the guide.

Other related processes that you might notice in your Task Manager are rsEngineHelper.exe, rsEngineSvc.exe reason security sync service, reason security dns client service, and reason security synchronize service. The method to deal with them is the same as with the Reason Security Engine.

Reason Security

Reason Security is a cybersecurity suite developed by the ReasonLabs company, which is a legitimate company even if its products aren’t great. In the case of Reason Security, aside from running resource-intensive processes and being difficult to remove, one other issue is that it’s prone to warning you about malware on your computer even when the system is perfectly secure. The reason for this could be because the antivirus is simply not very good, but it could also be a way to not-so-subtly promote its paid version, since the free variant (which users get from installation bundles) only serves as a detection tool, but doesn’t actually have any malware-removal abilities.

SUMMARY:

*Source of claim SH can remove it.

Reason Security Engine uninstall

To get rid of Reason Security Engine:

1. Uninstall RAV Antivirus and any other potentially unwanted programs from Apps & features settings section.
2. Quit the Reason Security Engine process and delete its location folder.
3. Clean the Startup items list, the Task Scheduler, the Services list, and the System Registry.
4. 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.

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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%