McAfee Advanced Settings

What is "Heuristic"

Heuristic:
Heuristic scan technology enables VirusScan software to recognize new viruses based on their resemblance to similar viruses the software already knows. To do this, the software looks for "virus-like" characteristics in the files you’ve asked it to scan. The presence of a sufficient number of these characteristics in a file leads the software to identify the file as potentially infected with a new or previously unidentified virus.

Because the software looks simultaneously for file characteristics that rule out the possibility of virus infection, it will rarely give you a false indication of a virus infection. Therefore, unless you know that the file does not contain a virus, you should treat "potential" infections with the same caution you would confirmed infections.

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