Virus Scanner Conflicts

False alarm from Norton AntiVirus about PAV.SIG

Norton AntiVirus erroneously identifies a text string in the PC Pitstop virus signature file, PAV.SIG, as a virus. Specifically, it confuses the virus signature that Panda's scanning engine uses to detect the "I Love You" worm with the actual worm. This is a false alarm; it is not an actual virus.

Panda's virus signatures are in the file PAV.SIG, which is contained in both PCPAV.CAB, the file you automatically download the first time you run our virus scanner, and also in PAV.ZIP, the file you manually download to update the virus signatures. If you have any doubts about the contents of this file, you are welcome to view it in NOTEPAD or any file viewer or editor.

There are three ways to deal with the Norton AntiVirus false alarm and still get the benefit of both your resident Norton AntiVirus protection and the PC Pitstop AntiVirus scanner.

1. Add PAV.SIG and PCPAV.CAB to Norton AntiVirus 2000's exclusion list: In Norton AntiVirus, select Options from the menu, then Exclusions.  Click New and enter the file name or extensions to exclude (PAV.SIG and PCPAV.CAB).  Check the Exclude from Virus Detection box, then OK twice to save it.
   
   
2. Disable the Norton AntiVirus 2000 auto-protect function before running the PC Pitstop AntiVirus for the first time.
   
   
3. If Norton AntiVirus 2000 pops up for PAV.SIG (which sometimes happens even if you think you've performed the previous steps), tell it to ignore the problem and leave the file alone, since you know that the file is all right.

We have reported this problem to Norton/Symantec, and have been promised that it will be fixed in a future (but unspecified) update to Norton AntiVirus. We don't know of conflicts with any other antivirus programs at this time.