Important! Avast reporting false positives

[Vicenarian]

Since a very recent update, Avast has been reporting tons of false positives. Everything from spybot search and destroy files, to skype, to movie editing programs! Crazy. It's all over the web, and I just thought I would post it here.

 

[kimsland]

You could let them know at their forums: http://support.avast.com/

But normally remove all found Malwares, unless told otherwise (by Avast! in this case )

 

[Vicenarian]

The forums have so many people posting that Avast's servers are having a hard time staying up lol. It's all over the web. Just google the issue if you want to know the scope of this problem.

 

[sllewe]

How soon did this happen? Im running avast free and have not seen any problems.

 

[raybay]

All of the antivirus programs periodically have false positives... it is not uncommon at all... just be careful about deletions... quarantine until they update.

 

[Bobbye]

They know

I've done two of these so far today.
See if this helps you:

From Avast:

Virus Chest — Quarantine; folder where infected files can be stored. The virus chest also stores vital system files to protect them from damage by malware. Users can also add their own files to the virus chest. Once in the chest, a file cannot be executed; double-clicking the file will instead display information about the file.

From Avast:

Win32elf-MZG false positive was fixed in the latest VPS - 091203-1

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=51647

At 5:50am GMT, another VPS update (091203-1) was released, fixing the issue (for both "Win32elf-MZG" and "Win32:Zbot-MKK").
Those who have not used their computers between 12:15am and 5:50am will most likely not be affected.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=51651.0
If you're still using the bad VPS (091203-0) we recommend to invoke a VPS update immediately.
You are going to need to spend some time on the Avast forum and support. None of the entries I checked from the Avast log were malware. False Positive information and link above.

Also on Avast:

You will notice the avast chest is in three sections:
1. Infected Files, speaks for itself, any files detected by avast that you chose Move to Chest as the action.
2. System files, back-up copies of important system files. There are (generally) files in the System Folder of the Chest: command.com, kernel 32.dll and wsock32.dll. During the installation, avast! copies some critical system files into the Chest, under the "System files" category. Those files might cause the operating system to crash if they get infected by a virus. If needed, those files can be restored from the Chest to their original location. Should an unknown virus infect the computer despite the extensive protection from the avast! antivirus package and alter an important system file, it can then be easily restored to its original state.
3. User Files, an area for the user to import suspicious files that haven't been detected so they can do no harm and can be sent by email to Alwil for further analysis.

Files are safe into Chest, can't harm your computer.
What a crazy way to run an antivirus program! I couldn't ind anything on "Category 1"

I spent an hour this morning chasing this down for another member. If either of these is 'your' Trojan, it's a False Positive that was fixed today.