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AlanYork · 19-08-2005, 05:35

I just opened an e mail attachment (a picture) sent from a very PC savvy friend to my hotmail address. No way would this friend knowingly send me a virus and I'd be very surprised if she sent one in error too. Trend, which scans all Hotmail attachments found it to be infected. However a second attempt at opening it gave a result that it was clean.

Concerned, I did a scan of my computer with my AV, Bullguard, which came up clean and another scan with Trend Housecall, which ironically came up clean too.

As a triple check, I sent some of my own photos already on my pc from Hotmail to my Yahoo e mail address. Again Trend at first insisted these pics were infected, then changed its mind and let me attach them. They duly arrived at my Yahoo address and the AV that Yahoo use (Norton I believe) scanned them, found them to be clean and allowed me to download them.

I have no intention of getting paranoid about this, since I reloaded Windows many of my pc woes have been resolved and as far as I'm concerned if my AV says my PC is clean, that's good enough for me, but is it possible that the Trend scan on Hotmail could be giving a false positive reading? I don't see how it can say that a file is infected and then, when asked again, change its mind. I also don't see why Housecall, (a Trend product!!!!!) can find no infected files on my pc. It can't seem to make its mind up. Has anyone come across this before?

19-08-2005, 05:35	#1
AlanYork Inactive Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 178	False positives with Trend AV I just opened an e mail attachment (a picture) sent from a very PC savvy friend to my hotmail address. No way would this friend knowingly send me a virus and I'd be very surprised if she sent one in error too. Trend, which scans all Hotmail attachments found it to be infected. However a second attempt at opening it gave a result that it was clean. Concerned, I did a scan of my computer with my AV, Bullguard, which came up clean and another scan with Trend Housecall, which ironically came up clean too. As a triple check, I sent some of my own photos already on my pc from Hotmail to my Yahoo e mail address. Again Trend at first insisted these pics were infected, then changed its mind and let me attach them. They duly arrived at my Yahoo address and the AV that Yahoo use (Norton I believe) scanned them, found them to be clean and allowed me to download them. I have no intention of getting paranoid about this, since I reloaded Windows many of my pc woes have been resolved and as far as I'm concerned if my AV says my PC is clean, that's good enough for me, but is it possible that the Trend scan on Hotmail could be giving a false positive reading? I don't see how it can say that a file is infected and then, when asked again, change its mind. I also don't see why Housecall, (a Trend product!!!!!) can find no infected files on my pc. It can't seem to make its mind up. Has anyone come across this before?