Scanning an installer executable

[ffxx68]

Hi,

I'd like to understand a couple things about McAfee and compressed files. I hope some of you experts can help - thanks in advance!

When I scan a folder which includes some installer executables, or self-extracting zipped files, does McAfee make the scan of the zipped content too? I noticed the option to verify .ZIP files, but I'm afraid when a .exe is scanned it is not assumed to include zipped content, is it?

thanks

Fabio

[Dinz]

Hi fabio,

While scanning your computer with mcafee it may seem to stop responding while a large file is scanned and this happens in scenarios where it encounters a large compressed file for eg. .zip,.rar .And also for your information , VirusScan scans the contents of compressed files, it must temporarily decompress the contents before they can be scanned.

Since File decompression is a lengthy process, particuarly on older computers with minimal amounts of RAM and slower processors.  Additionally, VirusScan requires time to scan each individual file contained in the compressed file.  When a file requires decompression, scanning can take longer to complete. 

note : moving thread to virus scan discussions

Thanks,

Dinesh K

on 1/22/10 12:17:24 PM GMT-06:00

[ffxx68]

Hi Dinz

yes I see McAfee scans compressed (.zip, .rar, etc.) files, but how does it understand if a file is compressed when it doesn't have one of those "standard" filename extensions. For example, a .exe file could be a self-extracting zipped, or an installer file, which includes compressed content but it hasn't a .zip filename. Will the scan work in those cases too? And what if I intentionally change the file extention of a .zip to a non standard one (i.e. .zap)?

thanks

Fabio

Message was edited by: ffxx68 on 1/25/10 8:48:22 AM CST