How to fix Chrome "managed by your organisation"

[aterhougas]

Hello everyone,

Chrome managed by your organisation.

I have just done a fresh Windows installation after I grew suspicious of my system's behavior. My virus- and malware programs never detected anything strange. After install I looked for a new free reliable virusscanner and came across Kaspersky Security Cloud.

Today I noticed that in Chrome's tools option it says ‘managed by your organisation’ . A quick google search indicates this might be malware, as it is my home PC and I am not part of a network/organisation. Visiting the link chrome://management/ shows the same message.

Should I be worried, or is this part of the Kaspersky Protection chrome extension which I agreed to install? How to fix it?

Thanks in advance.

[Flood and Flood's wife]

Hello @aterhougas,

Welcome!

1. May we have an image(s) please?
2. Please provide me with more information please, in your opinion, how is “Chrome's tools option it says ‘managed by your organisation’“ a Kaspersky Security Cloud issue? 
3. Please read Check if your Chrome browser is managed

Please post back?

Thank you🙏

Flood🐳

[aterhougas]

Hi Flood,

Thank you for your response. Attached are two screenshots of the extensions and policy.

I am simply not sure if this message is caused by installing Kaspersky, but since I re-installed Windows recently, Kaspersky is the only program I am not familiar with and I have never had this message before. I wondered if this could be part of Kaspersky's chrome extension and if the message would be considered normal. From my google searches and your response I assume this is not the case.

Thank you for the link, I have read it before and could not find the c

ause of this message, hence why I resorted to asking here. As a side note, the only other extension I have installed is AdBlock, removing this did not remove the message, nor did removing Kaspersky's extension.

I guess I’m just concerned about my security and will switch to a different browser as I cannot find the cause. Thank you for your time!

[Flood and Flood's wife]

Hello @aterhougas ,

You’re most welcome!

Thank you for the images and the additional information👌

1. Please post an image of chrome://settings/help - About Chrome?
2. IF all Google extensions are toggled OFF does the message persist?
3. Has a Chrome Reset & Cleanup been run? 
4. Kaspersky Protection extension version? 

Please post back?

Thank you🙏

Flood🐳

[Flood and Flood's wife]

Hello @aterhougas, 

Additional to my previous reply. 

In Chrome Community, there’s several Managed by your organization topics, including resolutions, have you followed those?

Thank you🙏

Flood🐳

[kill.Method]

non-malware rootkit.

[P.C.]

Hi

 

This seems to be a potential major security issue where trojan/malwhare could acquire the “Managed by your orgnisation” rights.

 

I could not find any clear content specifiying how to figure out if the “Managed by your orgnisation” is cause by Kaspersky or not and how to remove it.

 

Any update ?

[Flood and Flood's wife]

Any update ?

Hello @P.C. 

Welcome!

See:

Link

Is the “Managed by your organisation” current on your system? If “yes”,  log a request with https://support.kaspersky.com/b2c#contacts

After submitting the case, you’ll receive an automated email with an INC+12digits reference number, then, normally, within 5 business days, a Kaspersky Technical Support human will be in touch, also by email, you may continue to engage with the Kaspersky Technical Team via email or by updating the INC in your MyKaspersky account.

Please share the outcome with the Community when it’s available? 

Thank you🙏

Flood🐳+🐋

[P.C.]

...

Thanks I’ll do so

[Melissa]

Hello everyone,

 

I have just done a fresh Windows installation after I grew suspicious of my system's behavior. My virus- and malware programs never detected anything strange. After install I looked for a new free reliable virusscanner and came across Kaspersky Security Cloud.

Today I noticed that in Chrome's tools option it says ‘managed by your organisation’ . A quick google search indicates this might be malware, as it is my home PC and I am not part of a network/organisation. Visiting the link chrome://management/  can help?

Should I be worried, or is this part of the Kaspersky Protection chrome extension which I agreed to install?

Thanks in advance.

I am facing the same issue about managed by your organization.

 

[Tribal Cash]

Same issue

[Tribal Cash]

Some more info.

It looks like it is usually caused by an antivirus setting, and there are people who mention doing something with AVG and Comodo to remove that "managed by your organization" on a private computer.

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/47619513/why-does-my-browser-suddenly-say-it-is-managed-by-your-organization-on-my-private-pc 

One interesting thing, I had done the startup change to allow hardware virtualization as Kaspersky recommends, but suddenly today Kaspersky again says "To improve your protection, use a PC that supports hardware virtualization".

So it looks like the same program that brought up "managed by your organization" also disabled hardware virtualization.

Several days ago I used a registry cleaner and that may have done it, but it would be nice to get rid of the 'managed by your organization'.

[Tribal Cash]

More to add.

1) Kaspersky, under "More tools" and "clean and optimize" and "browser configuration" lists only one browser, internet explorer, which is discontinued.

2) My Chrome browser had "managed by your organization" for a long time. Once I thought I found a way to remove it but it came back.

A few days ago I was not able to update my computer, nor reset it, nor upgrade to Windows 11. So I began removing programs, and also looking for the cause of "managed by your browser".

After removing all programs and all apps, including Kaspersky, the registry entry still reappeared after restarting. The only things I was not able to remove were those Windows updates labelled as 'servicing stacks', so it appears that may be where the problem is, something Microsoft hides in a 'service stack' update.

After finally doing a fresh install, incredibly, "managed by your organization" was still on Chrome once it was newly installed, after Microsoft updates were done.

Now, several days later, 'managed by your organization mysteriously is gone from Chrome.

A very strange mystery.

Edited November 10, 2022 by Tribal Cash

[Tribal Cash]

It has been gone for several days, but just did a display driver update and after restarting the computer the registry again has the extension install forcelist entry.

It's odd that so many people have this issue and there is no solution that lasts more than a few weeks.

 

[murat5038]

You can try a system restore if it first happened after using a tweak or unknown software.
If Kaspersky is up to date, run a full scan, if no malware is detected, do the following:

Open regedit with the win+r key combination.
Check these ways:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies

If you see a value called Google and Chromium just below these paths, delete it.

C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy
C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicyUsers
Delete the contents of these folders.

Restart the system and check.

[Tribal Cash]

On 11/22/2022 at 1:37 AM, murat5038 said:

You can try a system restore if it first happened after using a tweak or unknown software.
If Kaspersky is up to date, run a full scan, if no malware is detected, do the following:

Open regedit with the win+r key combination.
Check these ways:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies

If you see a value called Google and Chromium just below these paths, delete it.

C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy
C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicyUsers
Delete the contents of these folders.

Restart the system and check.

Thanks, I usually delete the Chrome policy in regedit. The problem though is that Microsoft is a big company, and it seems odd that they would let such a hugely inaccurate piece of information on the computers of millions of people.

The computer is a personal computer not an organization's computer. Thousands of people have mentioned the problem so millions probably have it.

To leave such an inaccurate flag on so many computers Microsoft must have a motive?

[murat5038]

It's not a bug because some software wants to get more authorization, which takes advantage of MS and changes the settings. (Virus, System tweak software etc.)
The other side of this problem is that you can use it for small office or etc. IT consultants, IT managers etc. they want to protect the settings they do not want to change with the configuration in this way and can resort to such methods.

[Tribal Cash]

22 hours ago, murat5038 said:

It's not a bug because some software wants to get more authorization, which takes advantage of MS and changes the settings. (Virus, System tweak software etc.)
The other side of this problem is that you can use it for small office or etc. IT consultants, IT managers etc. they want to protect the settings they do not want to change with the configuration in this way and can resort to such methods.

Thanks, but I was referring to a different aspect of it.

I understand that

a) there are times when it is necessary or appropriate to control the parameters of software on a browser, 

and

b) there are times when a browser in being managed by an employer or other organization, and that fact should be stated, 

but, as many people have pointed out on many online forums for at least several years, those two scenarios do not overlap in the way Microsoft is trying to overlap them.

The specific example in this case, and in the case of many commenters online, involves a statement on Chrome that "Your browser is controlled by your organization" which is an explicit way of saying that there is a group of people who decide what is done with the browser etc rather than objective decisions made by software, like Kaspersky, and combined with the decisions of the owner of the computer.

My point is simply that there must be some reason that this deception is allowed and/or encouraged.

The net effect is mainly psychological, as far as I know, I have no idea about most technical stuff, but generally anything that can be accomplished by deception is better done another way.

The secondary possibility is that it is not deception by Microsoft, and that there is some malicious actor, referred to as an 'organization' in the browser flag.

Edit to add, reminder, the unusual thing I added to the conversation several posts ago is that there is no software that can be removed, and no setting that can be restored to default, to remove the issue. I had removed literally every piece of software from the computer including Windows updates, aside from 'service stacks' which could not be removed, and reset whatever I could, and still the registry entries would reappear when I restarted the computer.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Tribal Cash
add recent history of conversation

[murat5038]

I'm sorry if I couldn't explain or understand because I don't know much English.

On the Chrome and MS side, there are deficiencies in the statement explanation sections based on what you said. I know that there are similar ambiguities in different places. Instead of "managed by your company", a statement like "managed by software" could have been made.

If the reg part comes back in the last part, the problem is not fixed, it indicates that the malware or software that changed this registry entry is still active. If this warning does not appear but reg records are coming, this is a normal situation.

[Tribal Cash]

On 1/3/2023 at 12:46 PM, murat5038 said:

I'm sorry if I couldn't explain or understand because I don't know much English.

On the Chrome and MS side, there are deficiencies in the statement explanation sections based on what you said. I know that there are similar ambiguities in different places. Instead of "managed by your company", a statement like "managed by software" could have been made.

If the reg part comes back in the last part, the problem is not fixed, it indicates that the malware or software that changed this registry entry is still active. If this warning does not appear but reg records are coming, this is a normal situation.

You know English better than most people in English speaking countries, and if you speak another language than you know twice as many languages as almost everybody.

Agreed that there is a deficiency in the phrase "managed by your organization", but more serious is the fact that until I reinstalled Windows I was not able to remove the registry entry chrome 'forceinstallist'. It would reappear every time the computer was restarted. Now it only reappears after each Windows update.

Anyway, I'll drop this issue since it has existed for years and nobody on any site has a solution. Thanks for taking time to try and fix it.

 

 

[Tribal Cash]

One more point I'll add then I'll drop it finally.

A technical point.

The update sequence is a little different when a computer has the 'managed by your organization' flag.

~Normal sequence~

1) update, computer says it needs to restart

2) restart computer

3) everything finished

~'managed by...' sequence~

1) Update, computer says it needs to restart

2) restart computer

3) computer again says it needs to restart

4) restart computer a second time

5) everything finished

For example

1) Yesterday I got a notification that "Intel - SoftwareComponent - 7.9.1.3" was installed and the computer needed to restart

2) restarted

3) After restart, again immediately needs another restart

4) Today a notice that "Intel - Extension - 7.9.0.0" needs the computer to restart for installation

5) restarted a while ago

6) Immediately after restarting, again computer needs to restart immediately

Same thing happens with Windows updates.

7) After the last restart go to regedit and delete forcelist entry, see photo

8 everything finished

Now I drop the matter

Somebody will solve it at some point 

Edit to repeat the point, It happens regardless what settings or software you have. Happens whether you are using Mcafee, Norton, Kaspersky, etc happens after all software including Chrome has been removed, etc etc

Edited January 5, 2023 by Tribal Cash