antivirus program indentified firefox 8 download.exe as a decompression bomb.
In a high-heuristic pre-boot scan (one in which the operating system, in this case Win 7 Pro) my antivirus program identified the installer program (I believe it is), Firefox 8 download.exe, as a "decompression bomb", a term I am unfamiliar with. The antivirus program was unable to sequester the program, nor could it delete it. What is this thing, and if it is malicious, how do I get rid of it?
All Replies (4)
Firefox 8 download.exe - is that exactly what that message said?
The official Firefox installation package is named Firefox Setup 8.0.exe - that doesn't seem to be an official package.
Thanks. I'll need to do another boot-scan to identify the exact version or name of the whatever-it-is. I think it's worth adding that my antivirus program, Avast! Premium could not sequester said object. From what I can gather over the internet, if the thing decompresses it will let loose terabytes of garbage that will choke my hard drive. I just got an "anytime upgrade" from Microsoft to go from Home Premium 7 to Professional 7, but no disk. If I reformat the disk I have the Home Premium image but not the Professional image. If I re-image the hard drive, won't it just take the zip bomb with it? It seems to me the only way out is to reformat and lose my Windows Pro 7 download, then buy it again........
Don't get ahead of yourself imagining the worst, just see if you can get the real file name of what Avast thinks is wrong. You might want to visit the Avast support forum and see if any other users report a similar problem.
Thanks. I see that a total of 5 people are said to be experiencing this "problem". It may be an artifact of Avast Premium. I'll ascertain the exact file involved, and contact Avast network for support. If I find a solution, I will tell you, so the other 4 can be helped.