[R] False Virus detection with colorspace package?

[John C Frain]

Thanks.  This is exactly what I thought.  The idea was to check if
anyone else had detected a problem.  I have since discovered
http://virusscan.jotti.org which allows one to check the files using
20 different anti-virus programs.  Only AVG detected a virus. The
other 19 reported no problems.

Best Regards

John

On 7 November 2011 23:44, Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> This kind of thing is all too common. You can download the source, review the code, and build the package yourself, and compare the supplied binary with your home-built one. Chances are AVG will complain about that one too, and you can confirm the false positive. Anti virus software is not too friendly with non-mainstream software.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff Newmiller                        The     .....       .....  Go Live...
> DCN:<jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>        Basics: ##.#.       ##.#.  Live Go...
>                                      Live:   OO#.. Dead: OO#..  Playing
> Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries            O.O#.       #.O#.  with
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> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
>
> John C Frain <frainj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>After updating to version 2.14 and copying packages from my Version
>>2.13.2 library  I ran
>>
>>update.packages(checkBuilt=TRUE,ask=FALSE) to update these packages.
>>This failed because AVG reported a virus in the "temporary" copy of
>>colorspace.dll created during the install and the update then failed
>>because it was unable to open this temporary file.  To continue I
>>deleted the colorspace packages and its reverse dependences and the
>>reverse dependencies of the reverse dependencies.  After deleting
>>these packages the update process then finished.
>>
>>I would presume that the virus is probably a false detection.  However
>>when I virus check the version 2.13.2 library AVG does not find a
>>virus.  As far as I can determine the only difference between the two
>>packages is that they are built with different versions of R.  I would
>>intend to reinstall these packages when the problem has been solved.
>>I am sending a report to AVG. For the moment I can fall back to the
>>earlier version if necessary.
>>
>>Has any one else detected a similar problem.
>>
>>An extract of the diagnosis sent to AVG is below.
>>
>>Best regards
>>
>>John
>>
>>AVG Free Version 2012.0.1869 Virus database 2092/4602 detects a virus
>>in the colorspace package in the R statistical system.  The zip file
>>containing the offending file can be downloaded from
>>
>>http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/r-release/colorspace_1.1-0.zip
>>or from any of the CRAN mirrors.
>>
>>The message produced by AVG is
>>
>>*****************************************************
>>
>>File name:   c:\.....\colourspace\libs\i386\colorspace.dll
>>
>>Threat name: Virus found Win32/Heur
>>
>>Detected on open
>>
>>*****************************************************
>>
>>Is this a false positive?
>>
>>--
>>John C Frain
>>Economics Department
>>Trinity College Dublin
>>Dublin 2
>>Ireland
>>www.tcd.ie/Economics/staff/frainj/home.html
>>mailto:frainj at tcd.ie
>>mailto:frainj at gmail.com
>>
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>>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>



-- 
John C Frain
Economics Department
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 2
Ireland
www.tcd.ie/Economics/staff/frainj/home.html
mailto:frainj at tcd.ie
mailto:frainj at gmail.com