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Heuristic Virus
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 5:37 am
by JimZ
Not sure where to post this, but it's the second time this has come up on my home computer. Norton has classified the opendental setup_7_9_26.exe file as an heuristic virus. Specifically suspicious.Cloud.2
I'm hoping this is a false positive, but I thought I should check with you to be sure. Any suggestions?
We have recently updated to 11.0 so is it possible to remove this file now? Thanks!
Jim
Re: Heuristic Virus
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 6:39 am
by jordansparks
A heuristic warning means Norton is suggesting that it might be a virus, but they are telling you that it could be a false positive. Remember, it does not match any existing known virus pattern. Heuristic analysis has low accuracy and high false positive rates. To me, that simply seems like an annoyance that you should turn off (just the heuristic part).
Re: Heuristic Virus
Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:03 pm
by alkhaef
Yeah I saw this too... SUPER annoying and wasted HOURS of my time with Symantec's overseas deflection-ninjas they call "support" until finally talking to a real support person.
Note, I'm not calling it "Norton", because I think the current company has become a disgrace to the Norton name.
OpenDental's docs do say they don't recommend NIS, but I decided to go with them anyway out of a misplaced loyalty to old-school Norton (norton utilities, NAV, etc). I should have listened

.
Annoyingly, NIS would happily go around quarantining OD!
Even more annoyingly, I had the 2010 version and it was IGNORING me when I added OpenDental as an exception until they released a fix to 2012, which I had to update to.
Just to be safe, I eventually just disabled the whole heuristics stuff (I forgot what their marketing buzzword was), and come renewal time, I'm switching AV's to whatever the OD folks recommend.
Okay... Rant over

. Hopefully at least this post will prevent someone out there from attempting to override the Symantec non-recommendation.
Re: Heuristic Virus
Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:30 pm
by jordansparks
We've been using Kasperski for the last year or so with outstanding results.