Decompression bomb :[

system · 2008-02-19T05:57:10.000Z

Hi, im new to this forum and stuff but can anyone help me with my problem. Ive used the Avast! AV and the results show that i got a decompression bomb and files that cannot be scanned because it is password protected. Should I be worried about these? Help would be appreciated. Thnx :

O yea, the file is located in C:/System volume information/…

Lisandro · 2008-02-19T11:46:27.000Z

avast can’t scan files that are password protected, it doesn’t know the password.
There are many legitimate reasons why a file was password protected. For instance, the ones you’re talking about. Lavasoft stores its data in a password-protected ZIP archives (to prevent other similar tools from messing up with them). It’s really nothing to worry about - it’s normal.

Many programs (usually security based ones) password protect their files for legitimate reasons such as AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy, there are others (and avast doesn’t know the password or have any way of using it even if it did know it). Do you use any other security based programs?

When you run scans with the above programs and you delete harmful entries that they detect, a copy is kept (in quarantine/restore/backup) in case you need to reverse what you did. These are usually password protected, you should do some housekeeping and delete old backup/recovery/quarantine entries (older than two weeks or so), this will reduce the numbers of files that can’t be scanned.

By examining 1) the reason given by avast! for not being able to scan the files, 2) the location of the files, you can get an idea of what program they relate to. You may need to expand the column headings to see all the text.

Files that can’t be scanned are just that, not an indication they are suspicious/infected, just unable to be scanned.

Decompression bomb is a file that may be rather small, but decompresses to an enormous amount of data (when processed as a packed archive). Such file are not malicious per se, but they may block an antivirus program when it tries to scan them.
This kind of files is rather hard to detect (and avoid) precisely - so, it is possible that there are some false alarms. It’s not a big problem in this case, however - the “decompression bomb” announcement actually means something like “The file has a very high, maybe even suspicious, compression ratio and the AV is not going to scan the archive content”.

I’d suggest to ignore these files.
But you can change values into avast4.ini file to configure how avast should work with these files.
Click ‘Settings’ in my signature for more info

Welcome to avast forums!

system · 2008-02-20T00:50:51.000Z

cool thnx, I learned alot. When i saw the word “bomb” i freaked out

Lisandro · 2008-02-20T01:13:07.000Z

jacko post:3:

cool thnx, I learned alot. When i saw the word “bomb” i freaked out

Don’t worry.
Feel free to come back any time you need help you just to change experiences 8)

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