When antivirus lying to you to sell you more

Sometimes our company receives messages from customers saying something like this: "my antivirus says that your software is infected by trojan"... and so on. These customers are very scared and confused, and in this article I will try to explain what is going on.

In short, you will be surprised, but the same messages sent to any other software company, such as Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp e.t.c., not just to us. And the reason is simple - that's because any software can became a victim of "false positive" virus detection.

So, situation is confusing - we say that our file is safe, but your antivirus finds some trojan... Who's right?

First, do not trust us. Sure, we will say that we have no trojan or virus. What else we can say, really? You blame us, but we will be silent yet because you think that your antivirus is a holy thing.

Who's lying?

It's easy. You can check any suspected file using 70 other antiviruses and see if a warning is right or wrong. Until now, Internet have the only one site that aggregates around 70 databases of world-known antivirus apps and lets you check any file using all antiviruses with a single click. You can visit this site here:

https://www.virustotal.com

Just upload suspected file and see the results. If most antiviruses say that the file is infected, than, probably it is the true. If just one or two, probably, it's a false positive detection. And your antivirus is a liar.

That's all. But I can go further...

To prove my words I suggest you to search Google and you will see how many people complain about false positive virus detection in Skype, OneDrive, OneNote and other apps. These apps from Microsoft, we sure that they have no viruses, but, sometimes, your holy antivirus is wrong. The same is true for any other software company.

Why this could be?

Because antivirus can "suspect" virus by part of code, by just few lines of code. In most cases, usually, its not a virus, but it looks like a virus.

Using simple language it's like you come to the doctor and he says "I suspect flu, but I'm not sure, lets cure you from flu". Will you trust such doctor? Or if I use word "bomb" it doesn't mean that I'm a terrorist! That's why I recommend to disable option for heuristic analysis in your antivirus (logic that tries to guess if the file is dangerous or not). Antivirus have no right to guess, antivirus must know for sure. Otherwise, they can manipulate you.

They sell fears

During recent 19 years of my work in this business, I noticed several companies that use "false positive" warnings very often. Not because they care about your security, I think they just want to keep you stressed. Stress sells more! Much more!!! First, you see how many "danger" around you and how their product "protects" you. To push you to buy their "protection". But all these warnings are fake. If I dare to prove that, they will reply: "sorry, its a false positive". Very convenient for liers.

Be careful, dont trust anyone,
Yuri S.
Head of development office