What Do I Do When My Anti-virus Software Reports Elliott EXE File as a Virus?
A - If this is the original EL800P.EXE from us, it should not be a virus. But if it's changed after installed, then it can be a virus. The question is how do you know. Fortunately, there are websites to which you can upload your suspected file. Then they can submit your files to most of the popular anti-virus software products out there to see if it is a false positive.
For example, you can go to Google and search for "Check Files for Virus." The top site that comes up is www.virustotal.com. See sample screen below.
Go to that site and click on "Choose File" to upload the suspected file in question. In this case, it is EL800P.EXE in your M:\Elliott7\Bin folder. See sample screen below.
As of this writing, Virustotal will subject your file to 57 popular antivirus softwares for scanning. After a while, it will report the result of the analysis. See sample screen below.
In this case, out of 57 popular anti virus software products out there, only 1 of them (Avast) identifies EL800P.EXE as a virus. Based on this result, we are pretty sure this is a false positive. You should indicate to your antivirus software manufacturer that this file is safe and leave it alone.
Most of the popular anti-virus websites will have a way to allow you to report false positives to their portals. If you wish, you can take it one step further -- in this case, report to Avast that this is a false positive. To do so, the easiest way is to search Google for something like "Avast Report False Positive," then you should find it in the top link. See sample screen below:
On this website, you will need to provide your email address, a brief description, and upload the particular file -- in this case, EL800P.EXE -- and then submit.
You will receive a confirmation when they receive your file. They will perform further analysis and get back to you when they have the result.
By reporting false positives, you ensure that the future update of this antivirus software will no longer falsely identify this Elliott file as a virus. You will also help other Elliott users that use the same anti-virus software. In short, you are doing this as a good "Elliott citizen."
EMK