Title

McAfee VirusScan On-Access Scanner All Processes settings must be configured to find unknown unwanted programs and trojans. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Due to the ability of malware to mutate after infection, standard antivirus signatures may not be able to catch new strains or variants of the malware. Typically, these strains and variants will share unique characteristics with others in their virus family. By using a generic signature to detect the shared characteristics, using wildcards where differences lie, the generic signature can detect viruses even if they are padded with extra, meaningless code. This method of detection is Heuristic detection.

Check Content

Access the local VirusScan console by clicking Start->All Programs->McAfee->VirusScan Console. On the menu bar, click Task->On-Access Scanner Properties. Select All Processes. Under the Scan Items tab, locate the "Heuristics:" label. Ensure the "Find unknown unwanted programs and trojans" option is selected. Criteria: If the "Find unknown unwanted programs and trojans" option is selected, this is not a finding. On the client machine, use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKLM\Software\McAfee\ (32-bit) HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\McAfee\ (64-bit) SystemCore\VSCore\On Access Scanner\McShield\Configuration\Default Criteria: If the value dwProgramHeuristicsLevel is 1, this is not a finding. If the value is 0, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Access the local VirusScan console by clicking Start->All Programs->McAfee->VirusScan Console. On the menu bar, click Task->On-Access Scanner Properties. Select All Processes. Under the Scan Items tab, locate the "Heuristics:" label. Select the "Find unknown unwanted programs and trojans" option. Click OK to Save.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-243399r722536_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-243399

Group Title: SRG-APP-000278

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.