virustotal.com and virus/malware help
These folks help you to be more certain if you do or do not have a Virus, Trojan, etc.. Any virus detection product will occasionally generate false positives,(say your PC is infected when it is not).
You simply upload the suspicious file to them and they analyze it with 17 different virus detection programs and issue a report. Obviously this will be much faster if you are using wireless, DSL, etc. as opposed to dial up, especially with large files.
Part of my precautions:
I run an AV and occasionally run a scan with another AV on my machine. I also have a resident protection malware program running, and another not running as back up the same as with the AV products.
If ANY two of these indicate an infection, I presume that the infestation is real and act accordingly.
If only one indicates an infection, after testing with all four engines, I upload the file to virustotal.com for analysis.
Ultimately you must be the final judge doing this. It is possible although exceedingly unlikely that even if all of the detectors at virustotal.com indicate non infection you could still have a problem. There are no foolproof safety procedures. You may, or may not decide to destroy the file as a precaution. This may mean one or more programs will or may no longer function.
The Virustotal website (copy and paste it):
http://www.virustotal.com/
You simply upload the suspicious file to them and they analyze it with 17 different virus detection programs and issue a report. Obviously this will be much faster if you are using wireless, DSL, etc. as opposed to dial up, especially with large files.
Part of my precautions:
I run an AV and occasionally run a scan with another AV on my machine. I also have a resident protection malware program running, and another not running as back up the same as with the AV products.
If ANY two of these indicate an infection, I presume that the infestation is real and act accordingly.
If only one indicates an infection, after testing with all four engines, I upload the file to virustotal.com for analysis.
Ultimately you must be the final judge doing this. It is possible although exceedingly unlikely that even if all of the detectors at virustotal.com indicate non infection you could still have a problem. There are no foolproof safety procedures. You may, or may not decide to destroy the file as a precaution. This may mean one or more programs will or may no longer function.
The Virustotal website (copy and paste it):
http://www.virustotal.com/
posted by rhoadesb | 2:13 PM
