Author Topic: Avast only says win 32 malware.gen or file rep malware?  (Read 1043 times)

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Offline strakl

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Avast only says win 32 malware.gen or file rep malware?
« on: November 08, 2020, 07:09:18 PM »
Hi all.
So I just had a question. Basically, if I ever had a threat detection in avast, it was always win 32 malware.gen. And I had quite a few files. So my question is are there also other  names for malware in avast or only this one because I think that it should have a breeth description on the malware you have I suppose?
Regards,
Urh

Offline DavidR

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Re: Avast only says win 32 malware.gen or file rep malware?
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2020, 08:30:14 PM »
I think that the win 32 malware.gen couldn't have any detailed description 'win32' a Windows 32bit application, 'malware' could mean almost anything (hard to define) with potentially malicious intent and '.gen' = Generic, a generic (non-specific) detection.

Quote from: extract - forcepoint.com
Malware Defined

Malware is the collective name for a number of malicious software variants, including viruses, ransomware and spyware. Shorthand for malicious software, malware typically consists of code developed by cyberattackers, designed to cause extensive damage to data and systems or to gain unauthorized access to a network. Malware is typically delivered in the form of a link or file over email and requires the user to click on the link or open the file to execute the malware.

Malware has actually been a threat to individuals and organizations since the early 1970s when the Creeper virus first appeared. Since then, the world has been under attack from hundreds of thousands of different malware variants, all with the intent of causing the most disruption and damage as possible.

As for the file rep malware, it is a file with a low reputation or first time seen by Avast.  Again the dreaded almost undefinable 'malware' word creeps in.

There are literally millions of virus signatures, currently 16,818,927 even harder to define individually, as individual signatures can detect multiple samples.
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