Antivirusscanner

[Biomass2857]

I've got a problem with my program, i've written in C++ & SFML,
it is used for the digital query of french vocabs, but i've got a problem,
the antivirus-program alerts: Gen:Variant.Kazy, when i try to unzip or start it on the system where it's needed, is SFML the problem or maybe the fstream in C++?
Please help me so fast as you can.

Programming OS: Windows 8.1
Executing OS: Windows 7
IDE: Dev-C++
SFML Version: 2.0
Executing OS antivirusscanner: F Secure

Greetings Biomass

[ChronicRat]

All antiviruses are useless shit.

[ChronicRat]

This is problem of a person. =)

[AlexAUT]

Seriously I don't think you can do anything except telling the user to whitelist (or something similiar) your application.

Edit: Why did you create this vote?

AlexAUT

[Laurent]

Why did you create this vote?

Agreed, it was totally useless so I removed it.

[eXpl0it3r]

You can try changing the code, then pray and hope the AV won't complain anymore...

[Jesper Juhl]

I completely agree with previous posts here. Most (all?) AV software is more or less crappy snake-oil. Most AntiVirus software just checks for strings or patterns in a file, which is obviously prone to false positives, which makes them not very useful.
Also, as has been said, if you can't change the AV, then maybe just make random (harmless) changes to the code in various places, or change compiler/compiler options and hope you then no longer trigger that AV.  Pretty shitty solution, but it may be the best you can do.

[Nexus]

All antiviruses are useless shit.

Most (all?) AV software is more or less crappy snake-oil. Most AntiVirus software just checks for strings or patterns in a file, which is obviously prone to false positives, which makes them not very useful.

I don't want to overstate the power of anti-virus software, but your statements are definitely misleading (in ChronicRat's case plain trolling).

Today's techniques are much more complex than simply looking at known patterns (i.e. virus signatures), see here for more information. Often, anti-virus products are also coupled with other defense mechanisms like firewalls or spam filters.

[eXpl0it3r]

Antivirus software don't hold what they essentially promise or get advertised by the media and the companies themselves - yey capitalism - however using statements such as "useless shit" and "more or less crappy snake-oil" are hyperboles and shouldn't be used for discussions.

A lot of normal PC users have been protected from bad viruses, not only that, but just think about how the maleware market would look like, if there were no AVs at all? If nobody tried to actually prevent malicious applications from entering the system? If every child with some downloaded tool can format hard disks of a hundred people, since nobody is stopping Trojan horses?
Do you still want to hang on to your statements?

I'd say rule #1 in security is: There's no perfect security.
There's always a way and just because a software covers a few thousand or millions of ways, but not these other few thousands, doesn't make the software useless, it just makes it imperfect.
It is unfortunate as much as it's unfortunate that every software you write, will contain bugs.

And since we're on the topic, feel free to checkout this paper about "Outsmarted – Why Malware Works in face of Antivirus Software"

[ChronicRat]

I'm not trolling, I'm just don't know English enough to express thoughts. I'll try to explain my position. Sorry for my illiteracy.
I'm not using AV since 2006 and I have no viruses. Because I know how to use PC. But I know many people who use AV, and then they call me "Ilia, please help, there are the virus in our computer!!!". Because AV is not panacea.
My opinion - AV is needed only in company's computers where do the work of many different people. On home PC AV - is useless trouble.

[Nexus]

Thanks for the elaboration, ChronicRat

eXpl0it3r has summarized the problematic nicely in my opinion. A common misconception is that anti-virus can protect everything and compensate for careless behavior (like installing arbitrary executables).

I'm not using AV since 2006 and I have no viruses.

How do you know? Even with anti-virus software many viruses are not recognized, so how can you be so certain if you have no techniques to detect viruses whatsoever?

Virus patterns have changed a lot over the last years. Around 2000, they were mainly annoying, with pop-ups, forced restarts, deleted files etc. Over time, criminal organizations have started to develop them systematically and led to the emergence of a whole new industrial sector. Today, many viruses and trojans are very subtle -- they can even be inactive for years and waiting for orders. Botnets for example can be a lucrative business, since you can make money with other people's resources (processor time, network bandwidth, clean IP addresses) and the originators are very difficult to track. It is therefore wrong to believe that a system is clean just because the user (!) recognizes no noticeable behavior.

But surfing on questionable websites and executing untrustable files is just one side of the medal. Every software you use, including the operating system itself, contains security vulnerabilities. These are regularly exploited to introduce malware (even if a personal computer may be a less interesting target than a central company server), zero-day exploits are even traded for millions of dollars.

To sum up, there are several widespread fallacies:

• Anti-virus software protects everything
• I see no suspicious behavior, therefore I have no virus
• I am careful, therefore I have no virus

[ChronicRat]

How do you know? Even with anti-virus software many viruses are not recognized, so how can you be so certain if you have no techniques to detect viruses whatsoever?

Well, yes. I don't have viruses that show some sort of activity. I can detect viruses by strange processes, traffic leaks, system malfunction. By these parameters I have no viruses. =)