A friend sent me a keygen exe file. I checked it with Avast which identified no problem. Just to be on the safe side I checked it with Avira and it was identified as a trojan. I checked it online at VirusTotal and 15 out of 33 antivirus programs identified it as various things: suspicious, trojan, adware, malware, pak generic, and other terms.
I am wondering how to actually determine which analysis is accurate. This also raises the question of whether it is necessary to scan your system with several different antivirus and antispyware programs on a regular basis.
I am looking for an explanation and some advise.
Thanks
Here is my advice don’t use keygens, no matter what avast might or might not detect, they are a high risk area (not to mention the legal/moral issues) of getting a gift with the keygen that you don’t want.
The analysis is with that many hits take it as malware under normal circumstances and submit the sample to avast as undetected malware if it didn’t detect it. This is regardless of the fact that this is a keygenerator.
David, thanks for the advise. A friend (at least I think he is a friend) sent this to me to help me out.
How do I send it to avast?
Send the sample to virus@avast.com zipped and password protected with the password in email body, a link to this topic might help and undetected malware in the subject.
Or you can also add the file to the User Files (File, Add) section of the avast chest (if it isn’t already there) where it can do no harm and send it from there (select the file, right click, email to Alwil Software). No need to zip and PW protect when the sample is sent from chest. A copy of the file/s will remain in the original location, so any further action you take can remove that.
Thanks David. I’ll send it from the chest because i don’t have a program for making zip files. Guess I need to get one–any recommendations?
7zip like David said or IZArc.