Possibility of viruses in AGS games?

[loomer]

Hello there,

I'm writing this because I got an "Infected" warning out of the game Naked Fear.

AVG AntiVirus FREE blocks it from running, reporting that it's infected with IDP.Trojan.CB452937. This might be a false alert of course, but given the nature of the game (judging by it's review) I am suspicious. Could someone knowledgeable do a bit of research here? I'm a little concerned, as it's on the top downloads list for some odd reason

It seems that the AGS games are often hosted on the game developers' own sites. I wonder if there is any virus check done before entering the game onto the AGS website. Of course, this would clog up resources of the AGS team... I'm a newbie in the community (not with the games of course) and unfortunately not knowledgeable of the entire AGS game distribution process, so bear with me.

[m0ds]

Well apparently that game is all kinds of wrong even before it's been downloaded...

Whilst the AGS exe itself is unlikely to contain viruses, that doesn't mean the zip or initial download package (which may also be an exe, an installer or such) won't contain viruses. As far as I know, there's never been a malicious attempt before.

And PS, no, I doubt that. As much as we'd love to get a virus on your behalf to make sure no-one else does, it probably ain't gonna happen!

The game has a panel rating and a comment, and no mention of a virus from those users. That said if something malicious is found, we will of course likely remove the link/offending game if it gets reported to stop others having a problem.

EDIT. People can link the db entry to the completed game thread/games in production thread. My advice would be to trust those kind of listings more than others, if you're worried about what you might download. What cassiebsg says also, there are sneaky ways people could distribute you a virus, but there are also ways viruses can be attached to things even without the authors knowledge. That's the web we live in

[Cassiebsg]

I've been thinking about the same the last few days, since I just released my first and only AGS game, if there could be the chance of it getting infected without me knowing it, if I had a virus that attached itself to .exe files.

I don't know the answer, but I'm guessing it is possible (please do correct me if I'm wrong!).

[LimpingFish]

Malwarebytes says the file is clean. Have you had any other AGS games blocked?

EDIT: Spybot-S&D says it's clean too.

[Slasher]

Hi

whenever downloading a game from other that 'reputable' sites always be prepared for crap... It can / does happen. They generally attach spam or other annoying stuff to the download you won't be aware of at the time and it will probably self extract on downloading and infect your computer.

Caution is paramount.

[Adeel]

I use Microsoft Security Essentials. It's a light weight tool (which is good since Avast and all others are resource hogs and still don't perform any better, tbh) and does its job. And if it lets something slip, I have Malwarebytes Anti-Malware as added protection. Both of them reported the whole archive as clean. I also ran ESET Online Scanner and got the same results.

I googled about this particular trojan and found that AVG Antivirus often detects some programs such as OpenOffice and X-Com game as this particular trojan (which are false positives). Another possibility (which is very unlikely to happen) could be that your machine is infected itself and that particular attached it to the game's .exe. For a better measure, you can upload that game's .exe to Virus Total and see if it detects anything suspicious.

As for the game's content itself, it is made by a developer who hosts website dealing with 3D "artwork" containing extreme sex and blood (according to him). So it is normal why he would make such a game.

[NickyNyce]

I have had a similar issue with a game a while back. The Developer sent me a test copy and I couldn't download the game. My Kaspersky anti virus refused to let me download it. The developer is highly respected so I wasn't worried about him trying to give me a virus. I'm guessing it has something to do with how and where he uploaded the game, and my own anti virus. All my other downloads have been fine, but for some reason, this issue seems to pop up once in a blue moon.

[Slasher]

Sometimes Chrome asks if you want to keep or discard the downloaded file as it sees it as suspicious.