Most common antivirus software products, especially Avast and AVG have two methods of recognizing whether a file is a malware/virus or not. They do that by following a predefined list of viruses and malware if the name of a file is exactly the same as that of a predefined malware or virus then they are sure that’s a virus and will be removed. Another way is to assign a reputation score to files and if the file does not meet the reputation score then that file is assigned a tag- it may be a virus or it may not be a virus, we cannot tell for sure.
So what files are these? These are files associated with recently created websites or recent software or applications that are not yet whitelisted, and one such file is FileRepMalware on Windows OS. So how do you check whether it’s malware or not and should you remove it?
What Is FileRepMalware?
To put it simply, FileRepMalware is a tag associated with 3rd party antiviruses to assign to a file, the most common adware is KMSPICO tool which is used for activating Windows without actually having to pay for it. This antivirus will assign the tag to software it finds suspicious.
Is FileRepMalware An Actual Threat?
Several third-party antivirus suites have been known to identify this file as unusual, however, this does not imply that the danger is real. When it comes to analyzing files that are allegedly contaminated with the FileRepMalware virus, Avast and AVG are renowned for generating numerous false positives.
When not many Avast customers have downloaded, installed, or utilized a file, Avast will give the FileRepMalware tag as a warning. So, while it doesn’t tell you anything about how hazardous the file is, it does tell you how popular it is among other people.
If you suspect a false positive, the easiest approach to evaluate whether the threat is genuine is to upload the file to VirusTotal. This malware aggregator will run the suspicious file across 50+ malware scanners to determine whether it is infected.
Visit https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/uploa and click on ‘Choose File’, upload the file you want to check for malware, and wait for the software to show results.
Is FileRepMalware Harmful?
Simply because an antivirus tool identifies a file as suspicious does not guarantee it is. When examining files that may contain the FileRepMalware malware, AVG and Avast are infamous for producing numerous false positives.
If just a few people have downloaded, installed, or utilized a file, Avast will designate it as FileRepMalware as a warning. This informs you how popular (or not) a file is, but it doesn’t tell you anything about its safety.
Unless this tag is assigned, it is possible that it is because the file has a low reputation score. This can happen while using cracked software, but it can also happen when using a genuine file.
How To Remove FileRepMalware?
If somehow the VirusTotal scan indicated that the file is a genuine security threat and not a false positive, you should take the necessary actions to thoroughly eradicate the virus infection. This will necessitate the use of a trustworthy security scanner.
The first thing to do would be update your antivirus. Whenever a file is incorrectly tagged with FileRepMalware, it will be whitelisted in the following update. As a result, the false positive will not appear again.
When a new file is erroneously tagged with FileRepMalware, the following security update will often whitelist the file, ensuring that the false positive does not occur again.
Avast and AVG will both automatically update anytime a fresh viral database signature become available. However, a manual user change or another 3rd party program may prevent this functionality from being used. If your AV client does not update automatically, go to this site: Avast for avast or AVG for AVG to upgrade your security suite to the most recent version.
If you still get false positives with FileRepMalware after upgrading the virus signature version to the most recent version, switching to a different antivirus suite is a fast fix. Better still, remove the existing third-party security package and begin utilizing the built-in security suite (Windows Defender).
