Forgive my ignorance on how viruses, in this case a trojan, spread. I'm hoping that the concern i am about to express can be totally allayed?.
Norton gave me a green light several times whilst downloading the famous and popular VLC Player (i needed to do an update) it also, without being asked by myself, triggered a pop up window stating that the file is safe. That's perfectly normal when downloading a file. I've used VLC Player for many years without any problems.
Being extra cautious, once downloaded i always scan a file directly again before opening it. The scan showed no problems and only 2 files within the vlc set up exe file. However, i went into the Norton interface to track through history etc (told you i was cautious lol). I was shocked to find a big red warning indicator within the various Norton windows - and actually within a Norton window showing green.
I'll try make all a little clearer.
1.
At all stages of downloading from the official Videolan.org website (it does automatically redirect to a mirror, but that never been a problem in the past) Norton showed no warnings and kept giving green lights saying the download was safe.
2.
The specific scan on the downloaded file showed no threats etc.
3.
I go to Recent History within the norton interface and it states 'activity allowed once'
File Name:c:\Program Files\vlc-1.0.5-win32.exe
URL **** COLON FS FS ### ntua DOT gr FS pub FS videolan FS vlc (the **** replace the letters http and ### = ftp as i don't want to risk someone clicking on a live link to a trojan horse, also FS=forward slashes and DOTS are spelt out, also i replace the end 'exe' with %%%)
4.
Reputation Level Good
If one clicks on 'more details' it quotes the number of times downloaded by the Norton Community etc and it gets green all over in each category.
However, upon opening File Insight it states;
vlc-1.0.5-win32.exe Details, many users, new, good.
Then under Origin it has the URL with a big red 'X' next to it.
So one clicks on 'more info' and it takes you to Norton Safe Web where it lists it as a warning site and says;
Norton Safe Web has analyzed ###(i replace the ftp here).ntua.gr for safety and security problems. Below is a sample of the threats that were found.
Threat found Trojan Horse (the **** replace the letters http and ### = ftp as i don't want to risk someone clicking on a live link to a trojan horse, also FS=forward slashes and DOTS are spelt out, also i replace the end 'exe' with %%%) xxxx COLON FS FS ### DOT ntua DOT gr FS pub FS www FS mozdev FS emusic FS remote FS remote_uninstaller DOT %%%
So........Is it a case of that someone who has/had an account on ###.ntua.gr has in the past inflicted a trojan horse on people (and is likely not there now)?
Also, would one need to download the specific file quoted in the warning section of Norton Safe Web. Pretty much as in, if somebody placed a bad file on You Tube, Facebook or any web hosting site, one could safely visit hundreds of thousands of sites/accounts/files of good members on those services and so long as you don't visit the one malicious site, you would be ok?
Another famous anti-virus site checker gives the ntua.gr as a big green safe tick. Although in the comments section someone has written
Ntua is a short term for the NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS. It has a great ftp server but it contains a few trojans, so try to avoid them.