Quarantined file deletion

[Da_bomb]

Hello!

I am curious whether it would be advisable to delete files and trojans quarantined by McAfee.

I ask partially for clutter elimination reasons.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks! (and sorry if this is in the wrong forum)

[tashi]

Hello Da_bomb,


I am curious whether it would be advisable to delete files and trojans quarantined by McAfee.

I ask partially for clutter elimination reasons.

I wouldn't delete items held in any security program's quarantine until a week or so passed without one noticing any problems with the system.
Some hold for a month, depends on the user.

All security programs can produce false positives, some of McAfee's F/Ps have hit the news in a big way.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/03/mcafee_false_positive_glitch/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/21/mcafee_vista_trojan_false_alert/

Curious, how many items do you have in quarantine?

Best regards.

[Da_bomb]

I have about 15-16 items in quarantine. Most are trojans, one is adware, and one is, if it is to be believed, "Braviax.exe."

Most of all of this is fairly recent. I had never had anything happen before I got hit with the previously mentioned adware and Braviax (if that's really what it was).

Is McAfee's tendency to delete the infected file entirely, or does it separate the intruding program then delete that? Some of the infected files include what appear to be system restore points.


Thanks!

[tashi]

Hi Da_bomb,


Is McAfee's tendency to delete the infected file entirely, or does it separate the intruding program then delete that?

I can't answer that myself as I don't use McAfee's products. :)

Is the computer running well, any concerns there may be an infection?

Best regards.

[Da_bomb]

Is the computer running well, any concerns there may be an infection?

It seems to be running fine. A little slower on shutdown, but that's something I attribute to installing Spybot and having TeaTimer running.

You could say I'm concerned about an infection, but I think its mostly paranoia that something could be lurking in the background.

Anyway, thanks for the answers.

[Da_bomb]

Hello!

I asked a similar question a couple weeks ago, but I was curious whether I could safely "remove" (I assume it means delete) stuff quarantined by McAfee.

This time, I was wondering if I could post the actual directory paths to the quarantined files and get a determination on the foolhardiness, if any, of getting rid of them. Or would that be better reserved for a different forum?


Thanks.

[drragostea]

The path to the directory would not be useful...
Although, this is not McAfee support I can give you rough picture of what "deleting" the quarantine files does. Just like any other application, removing the file during a scan sends it to a quarantine (jail). The flagged file is limited, as it cannot do anything else otherwise (except stay and remain in quarantine until further action).

When you remove the file from quarantine, you destroy it forever (assuming no recovery software etc. is involved). So it's basically unrecoverable by normal means or by using Windows Explorer.

But the disadvantage about using that is when you're up against a potential false positive. I'm sure you can draw conclusions.