Just want to give the heads up on some research i had to do due to confusion with the new releases that showed up for Proxima & Obsession from mocha.

issues with trying to install them, both come with their own Synapse Audio Keygens Versions 1.0.2 & 1.0.3. For me they both didn't work giving me an error 0000x5.

The instructions say to run as admin but for me specifically both versions had no joy at all despite messing around for an hour installing windows 11 dependencies to rule them out.

I sandboxed both files in virus total and another which both reported the keygen works and show 1 trojan from several providers which looks good in theory with the report that came with them both do not show any suspect behavior really.

I thought it very strange that both versions do not work on my x64 windows 11 at all both with the 00000x5 error, just so you know ill admit this might be a false alarm just as the comments on audioz & other sites do specifically mention that the keygens work for other people and if this is the case then perfect although if this isn't the case at all then users may think about doing what i did and going backwards in Mocha releases until a working keygen is found. Well this is what i did and the only working mocha keygen i can find which works on my pc is "MOCHA_Synapse_Audio_Keygen.exe" and this is where the problem is.

This MOCHA_Synapse_Audio.exe appears to be a sophisticated dropper/C2 agent, not a software keygen. The behavioral analysis shows unambiguous malware indicators:

1. Actively detects when running in a sandbox/VM and changes behavior.

2. Process Injection into Google Updater
It drops fake Google Updater processes (updater.exe) into C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\GoogleUpdater/, injects code into them, then terminates them. Persistence + privilege escalation pattern. The cleanup of injected processes indicates sophisticated malware that knows what it's doing.

3. C2 Communication with Spoofed Domains
It makes HTTP/HTTPS connections to:

• TCP 20.69.140.28:443 (direct IP C2)
  
  
• TCP 23.196.145.221:80 (direct IP C2)
  
  
• DNS queries for Microsoft/Akamai domains that resolve to attacker-controlled IPs
  

The memory dump shows hardcoded strings for amazon.com, juce.com, and synapse-audio.com which appear to be used as C2 fallback endpoints or spoofed referrers.

At the end of the day im no expert in these matters whatsoever although i do run everything through sandboxes now "VirusTotal" being the main one which allows you to open a file on a machine which isnt your own and see exactly what files are dropped, created and all the processes it touches. Just everyone be careful before they run a keygen and do what i did because it wasnt long ago my whole life was turned upside down by a keygen to try before you buy. This gave someone a backdoor into my pc and leaked all my information onto the darkweb which meant i had to start again from scratch as to not risk leaving a backdoor open.

Feel free to let me know if anyone has had any related issues with the files mentioned or knows more about malware as im finding more and more gens that have been altered to do things other than get some software working.

 

Administrator Mode, my dude.

 

Just because no-one would check GPT

Spoiler

Yeah — this write-up is mixing some real red flags with a lot of sloppy or outright incorrect conclusions. Let’s separate the solid indicators from the nonsense, because that matters.

I’ll go point by point and be blunt.

1. Sandbox / VM detection
Plausible. Not proof by itself.

Lots of real malware does this.
So do:

• commercial DRM systems
  
  
• software protectors / packers
  
  
• license managers
  
  
• anti-tamper code
  

This only becomes meaningful if they show how it detects the sandbox and what behavior actually changes. If they just say “it detects sandboxing” without specifics, that’s not strong evidence — it’s a checkbox.

Verdict: possible, but not conclusive

2. “Process injection into Google Updater”
This is where the report starts stretching hard.

Red flags in their claim:

• Google Updater is not normally located at
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\GoogleUpdater\updater.exe
  Real Google Update binaries are usually under:
  
  • Google\Update\
    
    
  • Google\GoogleUpdate\
    and are digitally signed.
    
• Dropping a fake updater.exe does not equal privilege escalation
  That path is writable only if the process already has admin rights.
  If admin rights are already present, there’s no escalation happening.
  
  
• “Injects code, then terminates them”
  Malware generally keeps injected processes alive, because killing them:
  
  • breaks persistence
    
    
  • removes execution context
    
    
  • makes zero operational sense for C2
    

This behavior actually smells more like:

• unpacking / loader stubs
  
  
• failed injection attempts
  
  
• self-cleanup from a protected binary
  
  
• poorly interpreted runtime artifacts
  

Verdict: weakly analyzed, incorrectly framed as persistence + privesc

3. “C2 Communication with Spoofed Domains”
This section is objectively wrong.

a) 20.69.140.28:443
That is Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
Calling it “direct IP C2” without:

• decoded traffic
  
  
• command polling
  
  
• tasking responses
  is not acceptable malware analysis.
  

If this were real C2:

• it would not sit on a static Azure IP
  
  
• it would not expose raw HTTPS without domain fronting
  
  
• it would rotate or proxy
  

b) 23.196.145.221:80
That is Akamai CDN. Period.

Labeling Akamai edge IPs as “direct IP C2” is a rookie mistake that gets analysts laughed out of professional threat intel circles.

CDNs:

• serve thousands of unrelated domains per IP
  
  
• respond differently based on Host headers
  
  
• are routinely contacted by normal software
  

You cannot call CDN IPs “attacker-controlled” without:

• owning the domain
  
  
• proving malicious responses
  
  
• correlating beacon timing and payloads
  

They did none of that.

Verdict: this entire C2 section collapses

4. “DNS queries for Microsoft/Akamai domains that resolve to attacker-controlled IPs”
This sentence alone tells you the author doesn’t understand DNS.

Microsoft domains resolving to:

• Microsoft IPs
  
  
• Akamai IPs
  is normal behavior.
  

To claim “attacker-controlled”, they would need to prove:

• DNS poisoning
  
  
• malicious authoritative servers
  
  
• hijacked BGP routes
  
  
• compromised CDN accounts
  

They prove none of this.

Verdict: technically incorrect

5. Hardcoded strings: amazon.com, juce.com, synapse-audio.com
This is the biggest tell that the author doesn’t know what they’re looking at.

Those strings are extremely common in:

• SSL trust stores
  
  
• certificate validation tables
  
  
• plugin frameworks (JUCE especially)
  
  
• license verification code
  
  
• demo/protection systems
  

JUCE literally embeds domain references in perfectly legitimate audio software.
Synapse Audio plugins are heavily protected and packed.
Amazon domains appear in countless SDKs.

Finding domain strings in memory ≠ malicious intent.

This is string-scanning cargo cult analysis.

Verdict: meaningless without context

Overall assessment
This report commits a classic sin:

Correctly identifies “this is suspicious” → then fabricates explanations to sound authoritative

What they actually have:

• suspicious runtime behavior
  
  
• protected or obfuscated code
  
  
• network activity to large cloud providers
  

What they claim:

• privilege escalation
  
  
• direct IP C2
  
  
• attacker-controlled Microsoft/Akamai infrastructure
  

Those leaps are not supported.

Final blunt take
This is not a professional malware report.

It reads like:

• automated sandbox output
  
  
• mixed with buzzwords
  
  
• interpreted by someone who doesn’t understand CDNs, DNS, or Windows privilege boundaries
  

Could the sample still be malicious?
Possibly.

Did they prove C2, persistence, or infrastructure ownership?
No.

If this were submitted to a real threat intel team, the C2 claims would be rejected immediately.

If you want, paste the IOC table or “Indicators of Compromise” section — that’s usually where these reports completely fall apart, and I can point out exactly which entries are junk and which (if any) deserve attention.

 

Sounds like Orc mischief to me...

 

I just used Proxima for a track. It worked great. win 10 x64 i7.

 

I'd be curious what this spits out. Can u run it thru please? https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload

 

I Asked a "friend"

Spoiler: ai long answer no spoiler

Short answer: this is a very typical cracked/keygen binary, and the detections are largely generic/heuristic, not proof of a banking trojan or RAT — but it is still objectively unsafe to run on a real system.

Here’s the breakdown, based strictly on what you posted.

1. Detection ratio: 8 / 72
This is low-to-moderate and heavily skewed toward heuristic engines:

Flagging vendors:

• Malware.Heuristic.*
• Win.Malware.Gen
• Trojan.Heur.*
• high.ml.score

Notably clean:

• Microsoft Defender
• Kaspersky
• Bitdefender
• ESET
• Avast / AVG
• Google
• CrowdStrike
• Elastic
• Fortinet

This pattern is classic “packed keygen”, not “active malware outbreak”.

If this were a real trojan/RAT:

• Defender + Kaspersky + Bitdefender would not all stay silent.
• You’d see C2 traffic, dropped payloads, persistence, etc.

2. Packing & obfuscation (the main reason for flags)
You have multiple strong indicators of deliberate packing:

• Custom sections: .mocha
• High entropy (8.0)
• Anti-VM / anti-sandbox checks
• Time checks (GetTickCount, Sleep)
• Sandbox evasion (MITRE T1497)
• Stripped symbols
• Unsigned PE

That alone will trigger ML engines even if the program is doing nothing malicious.

Keygens must:

• Hide patching logic
• Detect debuggers
• Evade AV signatures

So heuristics fire.

3. Runtime behavior (this part matters most)
From the sandbox logs you posted:

✔ What it does NOT do

• No dropped executables
• No persistence (no Run keys, services, scheduled tasks)
• No DLL injection
• No credential harvesting
• No browser hooks
• No file encryption
• No registry autoruns
• No self-propagation

⚠ What it does do

• VM detection
• Reads system info
• Accesses JUCE-related mutexes
• Touches Windows compatibility / telemetry tasks
• Makes one UDP request
• References:
  • amazon.com
  • juce.com
  • synapse-audio.com

That last part is important.
Those domains strongly suggest:

• JUCE framework leftovers
• Hardcoded strings from original binaries
• Optional license/update checks (even if disabled)

This is not C2 behavior.
4. Network traffic: not suspicious
You have:

• 1 IP
• UDP
• No repeated beacons
• No encrypted HTTPS C2 loop
• No domain generation
• No data exfiltration patterns

Real malware:

• phones home repeatedly
• retries
• uses HTTPS or DNS tunneling
• drops fallback IPs

This doesn’t.

5. Signature & origin

• Name: MOCHA_Synapse_Audio_Keygen_1.0.2.exe
• Copyright: TEAM_MOCHA
• Unsigned (expected)
• PE looks consistent with scene keygens

This is exactly what cracked audio software has looked like for ~20 years.

Verdict (plain English)
❓ Real malware?
Very unlikely.
There is no evidence of payload delivery, persistence, or exploitation.

⚠ Safe?
No.
Any unsigned, packed crack binary is inherently unsafe by definition.

Generic / heuristic?
Yes — 90% confidence.

This is:
“Looks dangerous because it hides itself”
not
“Is actively doing malicious things”.

Practical advice (non-judgmental)
If you care about system integrity:

• ❌ Do not run on your main DAW machine
• ✅ If testing:
  • Offline VM
  • No shared clipboard
  • No shared folders
  • Snapshot → run → revert
• ✅ Or better: don’t run it at all

From a security analysis standpoint, this is generic packed keygen behavior, not a trojan outbreak.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 5, 2026 at 10:25 AM

Don't know if this is for the latest version, but reverse search leads to:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file...38938d639afc687c5079a834161cae9af68929db8afc/

Google Updater showing up is just stuff running in the background, along with svchost.exe, explorer.exe and other Windows stuff also showing up.

None of the hosts are suspicious. Leaving them in might've been an oversight at worst.

I don't see any suspicious activity. I did not check the registry activity thoroughly though.

 

all cracked software sets off antivirus bs because its doing things in the background to circumvent the way the program was intended to operate. Which is exactly what a virus does.
The difference is malice and actual cause and effect.
Long story short If you are that concerned about it, go buy it legit and you will have nothing to worry about.
The internet is a dark and scary place and no place for the faint of heart.

 

from a look around some of the posts on here it seems some get their dopamine fixes these days living on forums waiting for new threads they can pick at or trash for no reason except needing their fix lol, i thought it was just the social media crowd who had to post every day, buzzing anytime their phone lights up with a notifications before they can function .

Before any dopamine soldiers jump in, this is my opinion based on what happened on my own system. I’m on the latest Windows 11 Developer build, and it’s had issues for ages. Example, I currently can’t install .msix extension files in Chromium properly, and some apps that use .msix installs by default (like Splice) have needed workarounds. So yes, what I saw could be another Windows Dev build bug that needs ironing out in regards to why the latest keygens wouldnt run. Just for clarification.

I tried running:

• MOCHA_Synapse_Audio_Keygen_1.0.3
  
  
• MOCHA_Synapse_Audio_Keygen_1.0.2

Both of them instantly failed with the 0x00000005 error, and even running as Administrator didn’t help. No processes started at all. That’s what led me to try the only one I could get running on my VM:
MOCHA_Synapse_Audio_Keygen.exe.

When I checked that older file on VirusTotal, the behavior report showed it doing stuff that felt wrong for a keygen. Specifically, VirusTotal reports it drops files (meaning files it creates/writes during execution in the sandbox environment).
And in this case, it shows it dropping folders/binaries in Program Files that look like:

• Google2836_186038236
  
  
• Google3644_2039940449
  and also paths under a GoogleUpdater.

The two newer keygens I tried (1.0.2 / 1.0.3) did not show this same behavior (at least not from what I could see / what I was able to test). So naturally it made me wonder if the older one is not what it claims to be.

And to me this is the simple question. Keygens don’t normally have any business dropping Google-related folders/executables into your C drive when they’re supposed to be generating a license/key for Synapse Audio. Unless I’m missing something, that just doesn’t add up.

VirusTotal’s behavior report for this file literally includes:

• “Processes injected” into updater.exe processes.
  
  
• Dropped files consistent with a GoogleUpdater-style structure (including updater.exe + uninstall.cmd).

So my questions are:

1) Why would a normal Synapse Audio keygen inject into updater.exe processes?
2) Why would it drop an updater.exe + uninstall.cmd tree under a GoogleUpdater in program files?

If someone has a normal explanation for that, I’m all ears. But brushing it off as “all cracks are false positives” isn’t an answer.

About the network activity:
VirusTotal also shows this file making network connections (DNS lookups and traffic), including connections to infrastructure like Microsoft/Akamai/CDN type services.

That doesn’t automatically prove it’s “a hacker server” because CDNs are shared by loads of legit services.

But it does prove the file is doing network activity during execution, and VirusTotal maps behavior under Command & Control style categories (like use of normal web protocols).

look I made this thread mainly so that anyone, even if they aren’t techy, knows tools like VirusTotal and Hybrid Analysis exist.
These tools run files in controlled “virtual” environments (sandboxes) and record what they do, files created, processes started, connections made, etc. And VirusTotal explicitly defines “dropped files” as files created/written during execution (downloading, unpacking, dumping content, etc.).

And just to be clear: I’m not taking shots at genuine cracking groups like R2R, Mocha etc. These guys put serious work in. I’m talking about hijacked/repacked uploads where someone takes something real, adds extra nasty behavior, then re-uploads it pretending it’s legit.

Not everyone is an expert, and not every download is what it claims to be. “All cracked software triggers antivirus” is true, but it can be flagged for multiple reasons and not every single flag is a harmless false positive.

At the end of the day if you run a tainted keygen and it steals your logins or other sensitive info, it’s not just “oh no my PC is slow.” People lose money sure, but the people who make them have a sense of humor. They jump on every one of your socials and more potentially destroying any professional reputation you have built over your lifetime by sharing anything they fancy just for a laugh and before you are able to lock them out they will already have had you banned and locked you out of your email. That’s the price of not checking things first especially when some of these files are designed to hide behavior from normal scanners like your antivirus.
Im no expert, im a producer and app developer who has used several of these files over the years for the original reason they were created , to try software before you spend your hard earned money which is perfect when companies like Refx repackage the same thing over and over lol. That said , I have purchased 100% of the software I've found useful. This forum is to help people not to fix boost your ego so please remember this when replying to people. If this post saves even one person from running something sketchy, blind then job done. xxx

 

Last edited: Jan 10, 2026 at 5:52 PM

SUBJECT: Synapse Audio Proxima v1.0.1 Incl. Keygen-MOCHA

I have Windows 11 Home 23H2 and downloaded Synapse Audio Proxima,
extracted it, and simply installed it, using the keygen for registration.

What they're doing is completely unnecessary and leads to total confusion;
you also lose trust in yourself, the software, or the keygen.

You are strongly advised to create a complete backup of your C:/ drive to a second hard drive before downloading anything. This way, if your drive is infected with malware such as Trojans, you can easily restore it using the recovery disk.

Please download only from our sister site. Please disable your antivirus software before unpacking the file; otherwise, your antivirus software will reject the keygen and you won't be able to register your software. After registration, re-enable it.

 

IMO restart with a clean slate Windows (no 3rd party ISOs, no tweaks, no niche editions); "doing my own research with common sense" is not an efficient use of time.

 

A couple of days ago ESET antivirus suddenly detected malware in Google updater on one of my computers. The thing is I don't have any Mocha Synapse releases on that computer.

 

So you claim to have an infected file, and write a post which AI tore up in about 1 second; and then come back and think that trying to insult people for answering your post ; is going to accomplish something different?

You do not post the detection link. You do not include the hash. This is because you don't know what you are even talking about in your WALL of text that says nothing.

This is the keygen in question. It shows none of the things you claim.

Have fun typing more nonsensical BS about it, but you will be on ignore.


https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file...86c89a6eecfcc6db1ff0d50c6cd8fc32161/detection

 

I think that virustotal and many other "checkers" whether online or not are programmed to give the same results when looking at files that are "wrapped" or "sheathed" in some digitally obfuscating manner. For example, you can get almost the exact same resultant report if you run tests on just about any "patch.exe" from <pick any warez release that has a "patch.exe" included with it>. When running the same tests on other seemingly dissimilar "checker" sites pretty much all of them give an almost verbatim result to the VT report. I concluded that there must be some sort of pat or pre-programmed answer to these "checkers" that will attempt to ward folks off the warez scene by indicating false flag reports on anything that it has been programmed to "red flag"...

The whole google updater thing is the most comical in the fact that of all things to pick to be "dropping" why that particular thing out of a million others... The thing with "patch.exe" is that there are as many as 30+ "security vendors" flagging every single iteration/version of the file - yet this same file is used by thousands of folks every day with no actual issues incurred.

 

Last edited: Jan 10, 2026 at 9:30 PM

Some of these malware detectors can be way too trigger happy. I had "Clean My Mac" flag Ableton the other day lol. The actual program. The legit, owned version, not even a crack.

 

I have all Mocha's plugin releases without any issues here in Windows 11 latest update. May be your 0x00000005 error are caused by a real virus in your system, not by the Mocha's keygen. Good luck...

 

Or perhaps some of the garbage-ware that actually comes standard with OEM win11 is blocking the whole process...