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ScottLindner
Contributor
Message 1 of 6

How to prevent Total Protection from quarantining a known safe file

I have an .exe that McAfee believes is a virus but it isn't. I have added it to the Excluded Files list but McAfee keeps quarantining it on me. Is there some other place I need to add files and folders to tell McAfee to ignore?

5 Replies
Rajiv__s
McAfee Retired
McAfee Retired
Message 2 of 6

Re: How to prevent Total Protection from quarantining a known safe file

Hi @ScottLindner 

We are sorry for the inconvenience. Kindly check quarantined items in McAfee UI and the location from which it is quarantined. As it is being detected by McAfee, try excluding the .exe file  from the specific location and try accessing the program by following this article.

As well please note that scans will still detect this if you exclude the file but running the file will work. To fully remove the issue follow the below article.

How to submit virus samples and false positives to McAfee

Regards,
Rajiv S

ScottLindner
Contributor
Message 3 of 6

Re: How to prevent Total Protection from quarantining a known safe file

That is exactly what I did and it was removed by the auto scheduled scan on two machines at 4am this morning and that is exactly how I added the file for exclusion on both machines. The only solution I could find so far is to disable the auto scheduled scan every morning at 4am. What I don't understand is this wasn't a problem until this morning. This is a new behavior.

Peacekeeper
Message 4 of 6

Re: How to prevent Total Protection from quarantining a known safe file

Actually this is what exclude has done for several years . I checked back then and this what I was told by the livesafe manager then.   They are considering looking at allowing the exclusion for all scans but do not hold your breath.

Unsure why the sudden change unless the file was updated.

ScottLindner
Contributor
Message 5 of 6

Re: How to prevent Total Protection from quarantining a known safe file

That is the part that is most maddening with it all. It was working just fine on two machines and then overnight at 4am it got removed. It is a running daemon that I have running on these two machines and both reported they went offline at 4am and sure enough, it was McAfee that "helped". I hadn't updated the executable either. I kept an md5 file and just confirmed, the file is the exact file that it was for the previous two weeks. Maybe McAfee always does this on overnight scans and a McAfee update automatically scheduled an overnight scan and that is what changed?

 

For now I have to disable McAfee. I'm finding it is biggest bad actor and I ran without anti-malware software just fine for ten years. But I have kids now so I think I should run it, but it is too destructive and harassing. I hope there is a solution, my employer likes McAfee and they take security seriously so I figure it has to be good once I can figure out how to configure McAfee to not be the malware on my machine.

ScottLindner
Contributor
Message 6 of 6

Re: How to prevent Total Protection from quarantining a known safe file

It just did it again. I had permanently turned off Real Time Scanning because McAfee just won't leave these files alone that I have the exclusion on and now it is automatically turning Real Time Scanning back on likely after an update.

 

I know I'm not going to get kudos for this. But at every turn and step I am finding the worst malware I have encountered over the past 20 years of using a computer is McAfee. I have had viruses, but nothing like McAfee. I need a solution that actually protects my from malware rather than makes me computers frustrating to use.

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