Hi all, I recently did a scan as there was a chance that a link I was sent was spyware, the scan came back clean, however avast could not scan the files for Nero as it is a “Decompression bomb”. I cannot delete or move this file to the virus chest. I scanned the file separately using both windows defender and avast, I also did a boot scan as recommended by a more computer minded friend of mine.
All these scans came back saying that there were no viruses but avast still could not scan this Nero file. I have never had any previous problems with avast not being able to scan this, or any other programme files on my computer.
the result is shown as follows: c:\programmefiles\nero\nero8\nerobackitup_imagetool\root.img\root.img with the message “unable to scan: the file is a decompression bomb”
Files that can’t be scanned are just that, not an indication they are suspicious/infected, just unable to be scanned.
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).
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.
If you can give some examples of those file names, the locations and reason given why it can’t be scanned might help us further ?
Ok thanks guys…im assuming that the reason it is now coming up is because i was using nero to burn some CDS, so I guess it compresses all the wav files or something…
I just did a Virus scan as well and I got the same exact notification as the TC. So I went through the program files, into Nero, into backitup, and so on until I found the file. It looked harmless, was 12MB, and was a image file. But I didn’t take any chances and just deleted it. I never use the back it up option on Nero, so it might not be a big deal any way.
If I locate where the decompression bomb is located, can I delete the file/folder? It is related to ADOBE PRE7_TB_WWEFGJ.7z - 7-Zip archive, unpacked size 801,684,576 bytes