Microsoft steps up in industry efforts on mitigating false positives
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Antimalware vendors write signatures so that their corresponding products can detect and take action on malicious files. Every once in a while, a signature also detects a clean file – a file that doesn’t do anything malicious at all. The antimalware industry calls this a “false positive”, also referred to as an “incorrect detection”. It’s not pretty when an application or program is flagged as a false positive – users can’t run the program, customer support for that program gets deluged with calls, and the detecting antimalware/s gets a reputation hit. We, like other antimalware vendors, continuously try and make an effort to minimize the chances of us, partners, and our customers getting a false positive both as a software development company, and as a provider of antimalware solutions.
As part of this effort, we have been working closely with our partner VirusTotal - a well-known, reputable and industry-vetted online security portal where antimalware and security industry researchers, law enforcement organizations and customers can submit files and check for the presence of malicious code.
This feature is now live for everyone to use.
For more details, please visit: http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/arch...positives.aspx
