A short time ago I got a Norton popup telling me that Smart Scan had run, and giving the results. I've never experienced that before. Isn't Smart Scan a feature that needs to be activated manually? Any idea why this would happen? Finally, is there any way to see what temporary files were deleted (aside from the number of files, which it gave)?
If MBAM is set to load when Windows starts I would disable that. It will conflict with Norton doing its startup processes. If you have 2 Norton icons in the system tray USUALLY a restart takes care of it. I would also disable fast startup on the system and do a restart. Here is how to do that in case you aren't familiar with the process.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4189-turn-off-fast-startup-windows-10-a.html
Quick scans can take place when the system is idle for a specific period of time as well as be initiated by the user that is logged in. IF a downloaded file passes download insight scans and makes it onto the storage drive, Norton may scan it a second time if it detects something out of the ordinary once its part of the files on the system. Check the settings for how you have scans set to perform in Norton settings.
SA
Yes, I do indeed have "Quick Scan" results from the time Smart Scan suddenly popped up with results, even though I hadn't manually initiated it. And to double-check, I just now (purposely) ran a Smart Scan, and it did indeed show up as a Quick Scan in history. There is nothing from the last 3 years in Quarantine, but I wouldn't have expected SS to put non-malware temp files in there.
One oddity is that soon after posting my original question, I noticed that I had a second Norton tray icon, but hidden ("only show notifications") instead of always visible. But clicking on it produced exactly the same results as clicking on the non-hidden tray icon. I've run into this duplicate-Norton-tray-icons situation several times over the past year or two, so I wouldn't have even given it a second thought if not for the spontaneous Smart Scan. A reboot or two -- or even just logging off my Windows account and then logging back on -- usually takes care of it.
Another thing that makes this even weirder is that the day before the results of the apparently-spontaneous Norton Smart Scan popped up, I had results from an apparently spontaneous Malwarebytes scan pop up! I have no scheduled scans with MBAM, and in fact normally have the program closed (i.e., no tray icon). I don't think I'd be able to advance-schedule a scan with the free version of MBAM even if I wanted to.
With MBAM I thought perhaps I had inadvertently hit some kind of keyboard shortcut, but searched online and couldn't find any such feature. Can't find anything like that for Norton, either. At least with MBAM the program shortcut is next to another one that I did use around the same time. But even if I *had* inadvertently clicked on it, I would have been presented with a UAC prompt, which didn't happen, and then would have had to do another click to start a scan.
I think maybe I'll just pretend I imagined all this, even though I definitely didn't. Sure is weird. There isn't any malware that, for some reason, initiates scans on one's security software, is there (real scans, not those fake "Alert! Norton Extra-Deep Security says Martians have taken over your Windows!" types of things)?
Hello. Looking through my Norton history on all my currently running machines, I couldn't find any entries where Smart Scan appeared. I then came back to my laptop and performed a Smart Scan taking note of the time to compare to the Norton history when done. I found the information below shown as "Quick Scan Results". My suggestion is to look in your Norton history for the timeline when the scan you have in question ran, any security risks detected should be listed as shown in the blue blocked area for review.
Edited: You may also want to check quarantine for entries related to the scan to see what was detected and removed.
IMA!! I've never had Smart Scan run on its own accord since it was implemented so the idea you are experiencing it is weird indeed.
SA
Meant to add that I’m on 22.21.6.53 (I don’t know when it automatically updated to that version). And that I’m on Windows 7 SP1 with extended security support from MS.