TrendMicro OfficeScan flags Network Scanner as spyware

Our corporate TrendMicro OfficeScan 10.6 is calling Network Scanner spyware and cleaning it automatically. Could you get Network Scanner whitelisted with them? Many thanks for the very useful tool!

I will try to (unless they decide that it somehow allows you to spy on network users and thus is spyware in their classification)

Add an exception in your TrendMicro settings on your network. Don't have the company (TrendMicro) add exceptions that will defeat the purpose of TrendMicro software. Yes this software is classified as "spyware" because it can find a lot out about a network. In our case we want the anti-virus and IDS software etc. to stop this software because we don't want the end-users using it. We have exceptions on our workstations and on some servers that allow it to run. JMHO that is a much better way of handling it. -WS

That's actually why we're asking that TrendMicro be contacted about this. We don't want a specific exception to be created either locally or by TrendMicro since a static exception is vulnerable to discovery and abuse. We'd much rather they figure out what portion of their heuristics/signature is flagging NetScan and fix it so that it still catches malware without blocking NetScan (unless it's used maliciously). Also, most of the information that NetScan can pull up is either public information (obtainable without even connecting to the computer), requires credentials (WMI, SNMP, etc.), or requires internal network access so it wouldn't really qualify as spyware. We are temporarily adding an exception for it locally but as soon as TrendMicro can remove the need for an exception we'll drop it.

It looks like they did it on purpose. According to VirusTotal TrendMicro flags it as SPYW_NETSCAN, which looks like a specific listing rather than a heuristic error.



Anyway, I have asked TrendMicro guys to remove this "spyware" tag, the rest is up to them.

One of my colleagues has an older version (3.5) of Network Scanner. TrendMicro deleted my copy, but not his. I tried his version, and it works, but doesn't recognize any of the customizations I had configured (bookmarks, SNMP, WMI, etc.). Is there any way we can download older versions of Network Scanner? Maybe some of the more recent versions still support most of the features but can co-exist with Trend.

I don't go back that far in versions, but I do have v3.8 from 2008. I more than happy to email it to you if that is ok with Andrew.

Clientversion:
OfficeScan (Roaming)
Virenschutz Eng/Ptn: g.7SO.1D07/10.B7.DO
DCS Eng/Ptn: 7.1

detected and deleted 5.5.10

5.5.8 works fine so far

I found 5.5.7 on one of my flash drives. It works fine with Trend. Maybe we should keep this a secret so TrendMicro doesn't revise their detection algorithms to go after the older versions.

Looks like we're back in business. I've got NetScan 5.5.11 (previously detected as malware) and the new 5.5.12 sitting on my desktop now and neither are being detected by Trend Micro. Hopefully this issue has been resolved. Thanks for the support.