Author Topic: Diference between healing a virus and putting it on a vault  (Read 7956 times)

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Yanis81

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Diference between healing a virus and putting it on a vault
« on: October 23, 2008, 02:45:17 PM »
Hi, greetings to you all.
This may sound pretty lame, but I was wondering whats the difference between healing a virus or putting it on the vault, and if thats case, if the virus is in the vault will it still remain active? What does putting it on the vault exactly means?
Thanks a lot.

Online DavidR

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Re: Diference between healing a virus and putting it on a vault
« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2008, 03:25:04 PM »
Well the difference is (obvious to me), moving the file to the chest doesn't change anything in the file, it is placed in a protected area where it can do no harm.

Healing/repairing a file is the removal of the infected part (not all files can be repaired, see below), leaving a clean file in its original location.

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Trojans generally can't be repaired (either by the VRDB or avast virus cleaner), because the entire content of the file is malware, so it is either move to chest or delete, move to the chest being the best option (first do no harm). When a file is in the chest it can't do any harm and you can investigate the infected warning.

The VRDB only protects certain files, mainly .exe files, it doesn't protect data files or all files, it is not a back-up program, so there are going to be many occasions where repair won't be an option.

Only true virus infection can be repaired, e.g. when a virus infects a file it adds a small part to it, provided that file is one that avast's VRDB would monitor and you have run the VRDB, then it may be possible to repair the file to its uninfected state.

However, for the most part so called viruses, trojans (adware/spyware/malware, etc.) can't be repaired because the complete content of the file is malicious.
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Yanis81

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Re: Diference between healing a virus and putting it on a vault
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2008, 07:11:35 PM »
OK get it, Thanks a lot.
One more question though, whats the difference between keepint it on the chest ratter than deleting it, why would I want to keep on the chest?
Thanks.

Online DavidR

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Re: Diference between healing a virus and putting it on a vault
« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2008, 07:29:38 PM »
Again the difference is obvious, in the chest you have a copy and options, deleted, you have nothing.

Deletion isn't really a good first option (you have none left), 'first do no harm' don't delete, send virus to the chest and investigate. There is no rush to delete anything from the chest, a protected area where it can do no harm. Anything that you send to the chest you should leave there for a few weeks. If after that time you have suffered no adverse effects from moving these to the chest, scan them again (inside the chest) and if they are still detected as viruses, delete them.

It is possible that a legitimate file could be detected as infected (called a false positive and something all AVs are to a certain degree effected by), so if you delete a file that was incorrectly detected you could be stuffed (sorry about using technical terms).

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Yanis81

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Re: Diference between healing a virus and putting it on a vault
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2008, 08:06:49 PM »
Ok thanks a lot, clear now.

Online DavidR

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Re: Diference between healing a virus and putting it on a vault
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2008, 08:15:16 PM »
No problem, glad I could help.

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