Bitdefender deletes files without warning

Good Afternoon All,

I have just started using a MAC for some Security Training, any way long and short it had a bunch of security material living on the desktop and then I did a scan and it deleted a number of files - did not put them in to quarantine just deleted also no in trashcan. A few questions:

- Is there anyway to bring up the list of files deleted - I did see a popup when it notified me it had done it but I closed it and didn't record the files and now I can't find a list.

- I spoke with support and they mentioned there was no way to recover .... however I don't give up so easily. I have started to look at eraseus but it is getting caught up with the encrypted drive. Has anyone had any success doing a recovery under these conditions. Happy to work at the command line if required ?

Thanks in advance,

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[Deleted User]

Hello /index.php?/profile/218362-auceps/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="218362" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/218362-auceps/" rel="">@auceps,

Currently a data recovery software would be your best bet indeed.

honiag

Agreed. A data recovery software program may recover at least some of the files deleted by Bitdefender

You should recover the deleted files as soon as possible before they get overwritten by some other files during normal PC usage.

Deleted files that were inside a compressed archive (.zip) cannot be undeleted because the container file is actually replaced not deleted.

Check out if the missing files can be restored from Bitdefender's quarantine by any chance. I noticed that some files "deleted" according to Bitdefender's log, had actually ben moved to quarantine. BTW, when you restore a quarantined file it is automatically added to the Exceptions.

You can find Bitdefender's logs in Notifications - ... Scan completed - View log.

In Protection - Settings - Shield you can set the automatic actions to be taken on found threats (Take proper actions / Move to quarantine / Deny access) but there is no such setting for Scans. At least I could not find it in Bitdefender Total Security 2020 (paid version).

All in all, I don't like Bitdefender's behavior as it deletes files without warning -- including false positives - and recovering them can be a problem. It looks like users cannot change this default behavior. I think it is a dealbreaker if you care about your files.

exdev_robin

Short Answer: Forget the files. Uninstall BD. Its not for everyone.

The same thing happened when my company chose BD during COVID Lockdown. We work on an old technology from 80s where we export solutions and patches as chunk of archives. On a massive patch transfer, Bitdefender deleted every patch on the solution delivery system. BD Support and their tools could not help us out.

Every employee was forced to do their own research to find ways to recover files. Admins were banging their head for a week. Even high tech data recovery expert could not help us. Finally they decided to replaced BD with Kaspersky in almost 700+ systems and forced clients to do the same. All our weeks of hard work compiling thousands of patches were lost. Thankfully we did not install BD in our Development servers or a part of the product could have been lost forever. Its hard to even imagine that scenario.

For a developer or a corporate, I would never recommend software without proper recovery tool. Without proper control BD is by itself a malware. It might fail during critical times and incur heavy loss to the company.

Now I'm just waiting for my personal subscription to end. drifting through BD community reading problems faced by other users.

Zeelo

As soon as my current Bitdefender expires, it will be removed from all our computers. We will NEVER use this again. During a routine scan it deleted our Outlook .PST files - 12 years of emails and contacts have been lost! All they will say - "Sorry, it can't be recovered." I'm absolutely livid that I ever purchased this malware masquerading as an anti-virus!

Dave001001

I just ran into the same issue. Deleted files without any warning. I've used several other AV software before the almost always the default behavior is to quarantine and/or prompt and ask the user. In either of those cases, we can restore any false positives or files we're aware of and need to keep - as well as whitelist/ignore them in future scans.

I'm using the Mac version and wanted to buy the family plan Total Security for both PC and Mac users in my family, but after this experience I can see that having files automatically deleted without option to recover is totally not even something I can consider. The risks are just to big to handle, especially considering that my family and most people don't have proper full drive backups.

I'm curious - were you guys on Mac or PC? Just wondering if the experience is the same on PC and/or if this will be fixed on Mac.

FYI - the Preferences setting label says the action is: "Try to disinfect or move to quarantine" --> which is not true. The files were simply deleted without any option to ignore the threat and/or restore it from quarantine. Just simply gone!

I can't believe it!

jaileid

WOW.. I wish I had read this before. BD just erased my Monero crypto wallet that was holding about $25,000. I hope I can recover it. I am deleting Bit Defender now.

Mike_BD

Hello everyone,

Even if directly found as malware, Bitdefender Total Security antivirus puts the file(s) in quarantine.

cheers,

Mike