Unable to Scan Password Protected

system · 2006-11-19T19:10:03.000Z

Hello,

I ran a standard scan and the results came back with 187 files that Avast couldn’t deal with. A couple were “decompression bombs” but most were due to archive is password protected or 7zip file is corrupted. I would list some examples here except for the fact that Avast frooze up on me while looking at the results log and I had to terminate the program.
One line specified a file in a recycler directory and the file was dc262.exe which could be a worm or some other malware. The question is, what do I do about all of the files that seem to be password protected? I noticed that a lot of them were in the Adware Program directory which may not be an issue but some were suspicious.
Is there a area on this site that can give me some direction as to what to do when Avast can’t deal with something?
Also is there any way to get Avast to produce a txt log for review at a later date?

system · 2006-11-19T19:18:32.000Z

Hi :

 Apparently you have NOT read our "FAQ"s, located at :

www.avast.com/eng/faq-avast-4-home-professional.html  .

 Particularly our "Other Questions", located at :

 www.avast.com/eng/faq-other-questions.html  ,

 which specifically answers your "main" question .

DavidR · 2006-11-19T19:25:38.000Z

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.

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

Decompression bomb is basically a file that is heavily compressed so to unpack it could mean a very large file, that may be unmanageable. This was/has been used previously to crash a process making the system vulnerable. There is no way to confirm this so avast just reports this as a possibility but doesn’t unpack it to scan.

Empty the recycle bin and see if that clears it, this however, is starting to become more prevalent for viruses to place elements in the recycle bin.

system · 2006-11-19T19:38:53.000Z

Thank you for your help. I did read the FAQ’s and I missed the one that you linked me to. Thanks!
I will empty the recycle bin and see what happens on the next scan.

Your quick responses are appreciated.

Announcements