ZoneAlarm is an internet security software company that provides consumer antivirus and firewall products. ZoneAlarm was developed by Zone Labs, whose CEOs were Kevin Nickel, Mouad Abid and Shahin and the Company was acquired in March 2004 by Check Point.[2] ZoneAlarm's firewall security products include an inbound intrusion detection system, as well as the ability to control which programs can open outbound connections.
In ZoneAlarm, program access is controlled by way of "zones", into which all network connections are divided. The "trusted zone" which generally includes the user's local area network can share resources such as files and printers. The "Internet zone" includes everything without the trusted zone. The user can grant permissions (trusted zone client, trusted zone server, Internet zone client, Internet zone server) to programs before they attempt to access the Internet (e.g. before the first use) or ZoneAlarm will ask the user to grant permissions on the first access attempt.[3]
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"True Vector Internet Monitor", also known as "TrueVector Security Engine", is a Windows service that is the core of ZoneAlarm. In the processes list its Image Name is "vsmon.exe". This monitors internet traffic and generates alerts for disallowed access. "Operating System Firewall" (OSFirewall) monitors programs and generates alerts when they perform suspicious behaviors. The OSFirewall is useful in preventing rootkits and other spyware. "SmartDefense Advisor" is the name ZoneAlarm give to a service available in all versions that helps the user with certain types of alert, using a database of trusted program signatures to provide the user with advice on allowing or denying Internet access in response to program requests.
As of January 2006, ZoneAlarm was reportedly[6] sending data to the company's servers in a covert fashion. A developer dismissed allegations that ZoneAlarm was spying on its clients, saying that it was an issue related to software updates and that it would be fixed.[7]
On September 2, 2010, the free version of ZoneAlarm started showing a "Global Virus Alert" popup as a scareware tactic to get users to switch to their paid security suite.[9] The popup was turned off by ZoneAlarm marketing team after an uproar from disgruntled users, many of whom uninstalled the software.[10][11]
These messages are sent by users who think that there is a bug or problem with my utility, without knowing that this problem is actually caused by their Antivirus.
In some circumstances, the Antivirus software runs in the background, and when it detect a threat, it simply block the .exe file, put the file in quarantine, or simply delete it, without telling the user anything.
The frustrated user think that there is a problem in the software he tries to run, without knowing that the Antivirus software, that should protect his computer, is actually the troublemaker that causes this problem.
These messages are sent by users who think that there is a problem in my Web site, because they cannot browse into a Web page in my site or download a utility from my site. But once again, this problem is caused by Antivirus or Firewall that decided to block my Web site without explaining the user about the site blocking.
In the bottom line, if the false positives problem will make too much noise in the media, the Antivirus companies will understand that false positives may also hurt their reputation and decrease their product sells, and eventually they will give more priority to fix the false alerts in their products.
I agree this is a pain, whenever I plug in my thumb drive into another computer I find Norton happily deleting files from it for me. So now I tend to disable any AV before plugging it in (a lot easier).
Of course I also firmly believe most of them intentionally jack up the false positives (affecting primarily small developers) so they can boast higher detection rates.
And you are right, they justify this on the technicality that the software *could* be used maliciously.
I work as an IT Tech Support rep at a software company. Our software uses Microsoft SQL Server as its database. Over the past year Mcafee has been a horrible problem for us. It seems they block the SQL server right out of the box. You have to buy their higher corporate version in order to not have it happen. Our clients are constantly getting an invalid database connection, because the DB is blocked. What makes it unsafe. It requires the use of two ports to communicate. Firewalls and spyware companies seem to have taken over the computers. They slow them down, and often don't catch half of what is actually spyware and viruses. It's sad, but I find it easier and safer to run without all that junk running all the time. I have found other ways to be preventative.
I assume that McAfee and Norton/Symantec are terrible. But what about the rest: Grisoft AVG, Avast!, AntiVir, BitDefender, Kaspersky, etc.? Are any of them reasonably responsive to false-positive reports?
In Firefox 3.0.5, Safari 3.2.3, Chrome 2.0.172.37, and IE 8 under XP Pro, after I select my TypePad ID, your page brings up a Preview and Word verification box, but there's no place to enter the verification word, and, in fact, the picture of the word is clipped off at the bottom.
I posted this using Opera 9.52, under which the mouse wheel scrolls the box to expose the place to enter the verification word and the "Post Comment" button. Opera seems to be the ONLY browser that works to post a comment here!
Great program. So little, so easy, so fast and still so effective.
You need such program once a year or less, so put your virus defender software on
off state (disable it) and read your key. next boot its on again. and everything is fine.
How about lobbying the anti-virus/malware testing organisations to include false positives as a negative in their testing? Perhaps some already do this, but when I looked at the latest test from Malware Research Group they seemed to rate the tested programs only according to how many true malware programs were detected (i.e. true positives).
Our product iNet Protector is constantly detected as malware. We communicate with anti-virus vendors every month, but false alarms come back. Today this is harming our business to a very significant extent.
I dont use these softwares except for testing and vulnerabilities research. My advice is NEVER trust them. If people used a restricted user account on Windows, let the system and applications always up to date and specially, didnt open any kind of files they receive like pictures.exe (very well known social engeneering used by malware) which surely is something malicious then they wouldnt need an Antivirus since 99.9999% of the infections are the users fault and not a critical remote vulnerability that was exploited by a recently coded worm/virus .
I ran DNS Data View this morning and Norton Internet Security 2010 flagged it as a dangerous program, but gave me the option to allow it (which I did of course). They also provide a way to pass along through the program to all other users whether something seemed safe after using it. Of course, that is all based on opinion, but I am happy to pass mine along about NirSoft products to try and help.
I agree that this is a problem. I hate it when a software program that I purchased, deletes or quarantines programs that i have installed without asking my permission. This is especially irritating if the action takes place because of a false positive.
I have just a question: is it possible for someone, a hacker, to remotely use MailPassView to steal passowrds from my computer? Or the only way to install it is by having direct access to my computer?
Please excuse for the delay of our response. Please let us inform you that the files attached to your previous e-mail were really infected. We would like to ask you to send us all sample files in a password-protected archive to vi...@avg.com and write the archive password into the body of your e-mail reply.
AVG is allowing me to choose to ignore the threat, but it still stops me from extracting the files. While I can disable the resident shield, soethign else blocks the extraciton which i cannot disable.
I extracted the files on another computer to USB key and copied them to my HD. I still got the warning message but was able to add files to the exceptions list. however if you`re not quick about it will go straight to the remove/heal popup (which i just closed- extraction is prevented but nothign happens when the files are already there.)
Anyway, I thought I would mention my frustration with NIS in this situation after reading your blogs about
most of the major antivirus companies finding false positives for viruses in a lot of programs. Winrar for
example has had at least one of their recent beta releases flagged by NIS as having a virus. In that case,
it may have been a legitimate virus removal since it was the virus that got put into a LOT of programs
worldwide that were using Visual Basic if I remember correctly. As for the adware stuff, I wish every single
system utility program maker was as nice as you are about letting people opt out of the crap they add.
I am glad that I found this blog! I am an independent game developer, and the installation file of my latest game has been detected as malware by many anti-virus programs! I am currently dealing with a number of unhappy customers, and I feel completely helpless to fix the situation. I am both relieved and saddened to find that I am not alone in this issue. I have linked to this blog on my site. Thank you for making us aware of the situation!
Viral behaviour is defined by the AV company in the antivirus software, but often viral behaviour is to try reading passwords from the system (as much malware tries to steal passwords), or taking screenshots, reading keyboard in unusual ways, controlling mouse/keyboard (can be a sign of a Remote Access Trojan, RAT) and such.
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