I have a resident program auto-updater that I do not trust and want to get rid of

Since a while I see a black icon in my ribbon with exec in top left corner. It automatically starts and stays resident every time I boot and in Force Stop I see the program is called auto-updater. But I cannot find any trace of it anywhere on my Mac. As my Mac is behaving strangely lately, I suspect this ghost program to be malware and part of my Mac problems. Can anyone help with tracing this program's roots and if malware, how should I get rid of it? Thanks!

Download this program which was written by Thomas Reed, a long time poster. The program will do the work for you which makes it easy. If you are uncertain about downloading programs, try the manual method.
Malware Guide – AdwareMedic – 10.7 and higher
Manual method
Malware – Adware removal – Apple Support
Try running this program and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor.  Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read.
Etrecheck – System Information

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