Business Security Exclusions Not Saving (v 17.6.2525)

system · 2017-09-25T22:20:52.000Z

I’m using Avast Business Security (still on the free plan) and I noticed that Exclusions are not saving when I reboot. I can enter file paths for exclusions and they seem to work for the session, but when I log back in after rebooting they are all cleared.

Avast seems to flag several executables that are part of Vagrant, so I have to create exceptions or re-add the exclusions every day when I start up my development environment. Getting pretty annoying. I’ve been using Avast forever (like 10+ years) and never had this problem til fairly recently (past month or so).

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

system · 2017-09-26T01:43:34.000Z

It sounds like you are getting recent alerts possibly because of an application update. A change in Avast might be creating a false positive that you didn’t have previously. Having a blanket exclusion for your application might not be the right solution in the long run. If you can supply more info on the alert we might be able to figure out what module is complaining (my bet is the Behavior Shield).

As for your exclusion, you are adding it to the Cloud Console settings template for that machine aren’t you? You didn’t say Exclusions added directly on the local machine are overwritten by the cloud policy if I recall, they are not supplemental.

Manley · 2017-09-27T20:25:56.000Z

JesseTaft post:1:

I’m using Avast Business Security (still on the free plan) and I noticed that Exclusions are not saving when I reboot. I can enter file paths for exclusions and they seem to work for the session, but when I log back in after rebooting they are all cleared.

Avast seems to flag several executables that are part of Vagrant, so I have to create exceptions or re-add the exclusions every day when I start up my development environment. Getting pretty annoying. I’ve been using Avast forever (like 10+ years) and never had this problem til fairly recently (past month of so).

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Sadly, this has been an ongoing issue for months now. Shortly after Behavior Shield was introduced, web shield and file exclusions are ignored.

system · 2017-09-28T04:45:33.000Z

Manley post:3:

Sadly, this has been an ongoing issue for months now. Shortly after Behavior Shield was introduced, web shield and file exclusions are ignored.

Off topic, but are you adding exclusions to the Active Protection tab or the Antivirus Settings tab in the console template?

system · 2017-09-29T18:52:18.000Z

Pardon the delayed reply…was expecting an email notification when somebody replied to this post but didn’t get one! Thanks to both of you for your replies.

I’ve just been going into my local Avast install, clicking settings, and then using the Exclusions drop-down. I wasn’t aware you had to do this in the Cloud Console instead of on the local machine…that seems to render the local Exclusions settings totally useless unless I’m misunderstanding. Seems like it’d be logical to remove it from the general options if this is the case.

Anyway, I’ve set up a new group settings template in the cloud console and applied it to my system so I guess we’ll see if the settings stick now.

Thanks very much for your help!

P.S. Sorry, noticed you asked for more details on the alert…when I run ‘vagrant up’ it says vagrant.exe is suspicious and asks if I want to create an exception, but even if I do it’s still halted the operation so I have to kill the process and restart. It also does this with ruby.exe upon ‘vagrant up’. FYI, in case you’re not aware Vagrant is an engine used for quickly spinning up virtual machines…pretty widely used by web developers. I’m running version 1.9.8 on Windows 10.

system · 2017-10-03T03:12:14.000Z

JesseTaft post:5:

P.S. Sorry, noticed you asked for more details on the alert…when I run ‘vagrant up’ it says vagrant.exe is suspicious and asks if I want to create an exception, but even if I do it’s still halted the operation so I have to kill the process and restart. It also does this with ruby.exe upon ‘vagrant up’. FYI, in case you’re not aware Vagrant is an engine used for quickly spinning up virtual machines…pretty widely used by web developers. I’m running version 1.9.8 on Windows 10.

With any luck you have addressed your issue now by adding exclusions to the Cloud Console settings template as discussed.

If not, a screenshot might be more helpful. You want to try and identify the shield that is alerting you. Most new issues of this nature since the 17.x branch upgrades have been for the behavior shield, so turning that off temporarily might shed some light for a starting point.

Remember, an exclusion in the “Antivirus Settings” tab should affect all shields - a blanket exclusion if you will. Generally not a good idea as it reduces your defense. If you can identify the shield that causes the problem for you, you would add the exclusion to that particular shield’s exclusion settings in the “Active Protection” tab. Other shields can continue to do their job on that path. At least that’s my understanding of it

A quick Google search of “avast vagrant” etc reveals some other reddit users having the same issues, so maybe their results could be helpful to you.

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