I am a software Author, based in the UK
WHERE .. definitively.. do I submit a false positive - and get a timely response.
I have spent 8 days going via consumer support and Trustedsources.com to get my URL whitelisted (they stuffed it up the first time) - and now have waited another 4 for a reply from virus_research@avertlabs.com
Today I submitted to datasubmission@mcafee.com and virus_research@mcafee.com - neither or which yielded any sort of reply or confirmation.
I cannot submit a false positive from within TotalProtection .. which is a glaring and stupid oversight - putting the process well beyond the reach of most consumers.
The McAfee experience has been - *by far* the very worst of all the vendors - and with their huge market share, and backending many 3rd party products and services - they can cause enormous damage to a legitimate small business - In fact ... as a direct result of McAfee's ineptitude I could well go under. I have lost customers, damaged my reputation, wasted hundreds of pounds on Adwords and lost all momentum there, my main target market is the UK - where Mcaffee bundle their antivirus product with BT Internet - thereby excluding millions of my potential customers.
I have hundreds of existing customers who can't accept my updates - some of whom have uninstalled their McAfee products in frustration - even when they restore items for quarantine - they are immediately re-quarantined. Most of my customers are not technical enough to start creating exclusions or firewall rules - amongst those that have tried - only frustration and failure has been reported. McAfe doesn't automatically prompt for firewall access life it should - it just outright blocks my connection with no prompt or warning.
EVERY other major vendor Microsoft, Avast, AVG, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes and even Norton had this cleared within 24 hours - yet here I am 10 days later still fighting to find even where to submit my program to McAfee - The McAfee site and KB's are full of contradictions and out of date (10 year old) links URLs and addresses.
The URL in question is http://cloud.quicksnooker.com/qsLaunch3.exe
It is already whitelsited - and, given that it is an executable I naively thought that might involve actually checking the file - but apparently not !
The FALSE detections - on VirusTotal are :-
MCAfee - Artemis!D5A408E12CF2
and
McAfee-GW-Edition BehavesLike.Win32.VBObfus.cc
I understand that to an AI my *installer* might look like a Trojan - but these automated decisions need to be checked by actual people quickly after the 'death sentence' has been pronounced.
Saturdays Email - In case anyone here actually cares:-
KNOWN CLEAN FILE
Product: McAfee Total protection 16.0 R18
VirusScan Version 22.3 build 22.3.140
last update 22/02/19
I am the developer of the above - which has been submitted at it's distribution URL
to trustedSources Ticket ID 1974173 , and reclassified as a game - on Friday 14th June yet STILL (22nd June) is being quarantined by your consumer product(s) including that bundled with BT Internet - accounting for a significant fraction of the UK market.
Trusted sources have failed to remove the "malicious download" tag or the "high risk" .. it is neither of these things
I can provide source code if that is helpful - or there is a good summary of what the launcher does on virusTotal
QuickSnooker is a legitimate game - running for 19 years with 100,000+ installs and an impeccable track record
This is extremely damaging to my business at a critical time - many of my existing customers are negatively impacted and cannot receive updates - several have uninstalled their McAfee products as a result - My installs are down over 50%
Virus total reports less than 9/70 - and you are at least two of the remaining false positives - please whitelist this file as soon as possible
Nick Axworthy
PS I am having to send via my ancient hotmail account - as (probably due to misclassification at trusted sources !) Gmail detects the contents as a virus - WHICH IT ISN'T
