[R] malware reported by antivirus on R Windows .exe file

peter dalgaard
Tue, 05 Jun 2018 10:19:38 -0000

These are almost always false positives. The checks are based on checksumming
and sometimes a perfectly innocent .exe will match the checksum of some
virus/malware. The .exe is rebuilt nightly and changes slightly between builds,
so you may want just retry after a day or so.

(The AV vendors are behaving pretty irresponsibly in these matters, but as long
as it only hits a patch build, I don't think anyone cares enough to take
action.)

-pd

> On 5 Jun 2018, at 00:03 , Paulo Barata <pb at infolink.com.br> wrote:
>
> Dear R-list members,
>
> This is just to make a report: Today, 04 June 2018, I attempted to download
R-3.5.0 Patched build for Windows (a .exe file) from the Austria CRAN https
site. My antivirus software, AVG Internet Security with all the latest updates,
aborted the connection, saying that some malware was found - please see the
attached Figure 1.
>
> I went then to the CRAN mirror at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, and was able to download the .exe file. I immediately asked the AVG
software to scan the file; it found something suspicious and sent the file for
analysis in their labs. Some hours later, AVG said that the file was malicious,
and sent it to quarantine; I am not able to figure out which kind of malware was
supposed to exist in the file - please see the attached Figure 2.
>
> Yesterday I was also not able to download the .exe file from the Austria
CRAN site, for the same reason.
>
> I am not able to evaluate the technical corretness of AVG's decisions.
I am only reporting what happened.
>
> Paulo Barata
>
> (Rio de Janeiro - Brazil)
>
>
<Fig-1-Link-from-CRAN-Austria-for-R-3.5.0-patched-0n-04-June-2018.png><Fig-2-R-3.5.0-patched-from-Fiocruz-Brazil-site-on-04-June-2018.png>______________________________________________
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--
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Office: A 4.23
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com