Disinfection of Outlook PST files

I'm a new user of Bitdefender Free 2017 - I decided to try it after having had problems with Avast Free and am so far impressed with it's minimalist approach. I'm running it on a Windows 7 SP1 x64 system alongside Malwarebytes 3 Premium and CryptoPrevent 8 Premium for a multilayered approach and have seen no problems thus far.

On my first full scan with Bitdefender, it picked up an instance of W97.Thus.EW in my Outlook archive.pst file and some other backup pst files (never previously discovered by any other antivirus scans of my system by other products), which I presume is lurking in some Word Macro from what I have learned by Googling it.

My question is, what action should I take? If I disinfect the archive files, will the disinfection only affect the infected Word document (presumably an unopened mail attachment) or is there a possibility of it corrupting the PST file(s). I do have external backups of all these files if the worst should happen.

Thanks

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Dazed23

While waiting for some help, I tried disinfecting the infection in one archive.pst, but Bitdefender was unable to carry this out, so I guess this isn't an option. If I can't easily identify the individual attachment in a file of 1.25 GB, I guess I'll just tell Bitdefender to ignore it - it's unlikely I'd ever actually try to open the attachment in old mail - and Bitdefender would block it in that event anyway, I'm sure.

virtualclouds

Virus:W97M/Thus.EW is a virus that can spreads by attaching its code to other files on your PC or network. Some of the infected programs might no longer run correctly sooner or later. The following virus is an old one and it happens only through attachment, my suggestion is don't try to open the following old email with the attachment. because those emails come from spam. The thing is that it that it will not affect your computer at all. because the file is on archive and it will happen when you manage to import the file through .pst and manage to open the email attachment.

Dazed23

1 hour ago, virtualclouds said:

Virus:W97M/Thus.EW is a virus that can spreads by attaching its code to other files on your PC or network. Some of the infected programs might no longer run correctly sooner or later. The following virus is an old one and it happens only through attachment, my suggestion is don't try to open the following old email with the attachment. because those emails come from spam. The thing is that it that it will not affect your computer at all. because the file is on archive and it will happen when you manage to import the file through .pst and manage to open the email attachment.

Thanks, that's pretty much what I thought. I'm sure the virus is a macro in some old Word attachment in the archive that I've never opened and therefore it's never triggered an antivirus response from whatever security software I was using at the time. If I was to ever try to open it, I'm sure Bitdefender or Malwarebytes would immediately throw up a warning.......

Danielst

Hi Dazed,

Please send us an e-mail at bitsy@bitdefender.com so we may identify the detected items and provide you a list. In order to generate a scanlog, please use this article: https://www.bitdefender.com/support/how-to-generate-and-submit-a-scan-log-with-bitdefender-2017-1741.html

Thank you,

Dazed23

Thank you for your response, but I've taken the decision to uninstall Bitdefender Free after some testing. I think it's a great product but I don't like to way it seems to be able to delete suspicious files without the option to override or undo the action.