IM scanning .. how does it work?

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by TechOutsider, Feb 20, 2009.

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  1. TechOutsider

    TechOutsider Registered Member

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    How exactly does IM scanning work on most AV programs? Many advertise such a feature ... however I never understood how it worked exactly.

    If an AV's IM scanning feature just scans executable/files downloaded from links provided in an IM, then ... so what? That's standard behavior.
     
  2. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    Basically it's done through commandline scanner. But some more sophisticated AV's do that automatically anyway (avast! with IM Shield). However files are in the end always scanned by real-time scanner anyway.
     
  3. TechOutsider

    TechOutsider Registered Member

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    Can you be more specfic? What does the command line scanner scan? Files? Links? Exploits?
     
  4. Baz_kasp

    Baz_kasp Registered Member

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    Scans the incoming and outbound traffic....so links, files, messages sent... (in the case of Kaspersky anyway...which doesn't use the commandline scanner, its just a tickbox in the IM settings)


    If you send a bad link for example that it knows about the link is replaced with a message "blocked by Kaspersky anti-virus"
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2009
  5. Arin

    Arin Registered Member

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    I think they monitor certain ports e.g. TCP 4443 for Yahoo Messenger file transfers.
     
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