Well Hardened Mode, set to Aggressive should have seen off this sample.

Enable Hardened mode - Protects novice users who do not understand the risks of opening unknown files. Set on moderate, no files with poor reputation are allowed to run.[b] When set to aggressive, only whitelisted files can be opened.[/b]

I would assume that this sample wouldn’t have be in the avast cloud whitelist database.

Another point to know VirusTotal can’t fully emulate the user experience as the scan is using the On-demand scan. Only the on-access scanner would access the cloud whitelist, and trigger the alert.

Considering the Hardened Mode:

Protects novice users who do not understand the risks of opening unknown files.

Why then is it disabled by default (if I remember correctly) when for the most part avast users are likely to be novices.