No virus in RTG Bills and RTG Timer!

False positives

On June 12, 2005, we received reports that McAfee (Network Associates) Antivirus software was finding a virus in the RTG Bills and RTG Timer installation file. Both the demo version and the full version were triggering this report.

There is no virus in RTG's software.
RTG Bills and RTG Timer Version 2.13 was released in October 2004. The software had been on our Web server, unchanged, since then. We had no reports of any antivirus programs finding a virus in this software until June 2005, and then only the McAfee program claimed to find a virus. Clearly, it was something that they changed, not something we did.

This is called a false positive - the antivirus program says there is a virus, when there isn't.

Note: McAfee fixed the problem the next day. Apparently, the false positive report affected a great deal of software that uses Inno Setup for installation.

 

Problems with McAfee

False positives seem to be a continuing problem with McAfee's antivirus software. About.com had an article [since removed] about this problem with McAfee software:

McAfee Sees Viruses Everywhere: Even when they simply don't exist

The title pretty much sums up the article.

 

More about this false positive

The problem was that McAfee falsely reported the virus, Generic Backdoor.dr, in the RTG Bills and RTG Timer installation file. The term generic means that the antivirus program has not found a specific virus, but it thinks it might have found a pattern that could indicate a virus. In short, they guessed, and they guessed wrong.

 

Previous false positive

In September 2004, we learned that Norton Antivirus was reporting that certain programs used by RTG Bills and RTG Timer were spyware. Two programs, upgrade.exe and imptfees.exe, were involved.

These programs are not spyware! The program upgrade.exe is used to download and install free upgrades to RTG Bills and RTG Timer. The program imptfees.exe is used to import fees and expenses into RTG Bills from other software, such as a case management program.

This incident is typical of false positive reports. We (at RTG) don't change anything, then suddenly one (and only one) antivirus program reports a problem with our software. There isn't much we can do, other than to ask people to report the problem to their antivirus software vendor.

 
 
What's New Site Map Software Orders Support Contact

Copyright © 2005-2024 RTG Data Systems | Privacy Policy