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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: Jan_Ko on August 12, 2003, 05:57:43 PM

Title: Virusalert if empty subject line
Post by: Jan_Ko on August 12, 2003, 05:57:43 PM
For some long time ago I reported a possible bug  (subject: could this be a bug).  Via this forum and via e-mail we discussed this matter.  May be the question I put forward has been in the forum already.  If so I apologize for asking again :o.

Today I experienced that I wanted to send an e-mail without anything in the subject line.  Avast reported a virus in the e-mail to be send.  Ok, Outlook also asks whether you want to put some text in the subject line or not, but reporting an virus because this line is blanc is in my opinion a little bit overdone or there must be some reason I don’t know to give me this message.
After typing some text in the subject line the virus alert disappeared.

Some way or another this is more or less the same as I experienced when I started the subject “Could this be a bug”.

Jan
Title: Re:Virusalert if empty subject line
Post by: sedina on August 15, 2003, 04:44:19 PM
Hi,
empty subject is one of attributes which avast! uses during heuristic analysis of email messages. It "can be" an indication of virus. If you don't want use testing for empty subject, you can disable it in avast! settings. BUT! After almost one year experience with this feature, we decided to exclude testing for empty subject from all defined sensitivity (Normal, Medium, High). It can be accesible only in Custom settings. The reason is that it brings more "damages" than benefits. This manner will be available in next program update.

pavels