Windows 10: False threat or not?

Hello, I was on discord chilling with my mates and i recieved a notification that my bitdefender blocked something that could potentially be a threat. It blocked something related to a microsoft app so idk if it's a false alarm or not.

:)

 

Windows defender false positive - forced to allow threat

Windows defender has started to identify C:\Windows\System32\mshta.exe as a threat [normally reported as a Trojan Powessere.G]. I use mshta.exe to run an hta custom MsgBox - I have been hoping to keep using my current CustomMsgBox tool [batch file calling a vbs-hta file] until later this year when I hope to have had enough time to replace it with a PowerShell alternative.

Windows defender's notification lets me "allow the threat" but that seems to me to be a bigger security hole than is necessary - it will now ignore a potentially real intrusion when all I want to run is a genuine Windows component. My immediate problem is fixed but I would prefer to fix the false positive using the exclusions list.

I cleared the 'Allowed threats history' so I could use the exclusions list instead. I added C:\Windows\System32\mshta.exe to the file exclusions list and I checked that it had taken properly by checking the exclusions list both in the UI & in the Registry. But the exclusion made no difference, it continued to detect and block the exe.

I have repeated the attempt several times [by clearing the allowed threats list & exclusions list beforehand] and the results are the same every time
- allowing the threat works,
- using the exclusions list has no effect.

I studied the relevant tutorial but have not spotted an error in what I have been doing - Add or Remove Windows Defender Exclusions

Does anybody with experience of using the exclusions list to counter false positives have any suggestions for me?

Denis

 

Is restoring a quarantined threat the same as allowing the threat?

My Windows defender scan reported a threat last week. I quarantined it. After a few days, I updated my defender virus definitions, restored the threat, and ran another scan (because I wanted to find out if it was a false positive). This new scan did not
report any threat.

However, under defender's threat history, allowed items, I see this threat listed. I do NOT want to allow the threat, just wanted to find out if the latest definitions would still reported the file as a threat. How should I do that? Thank you. I am using
windows 10.

 

How can I verify if virus threats are false positives or actually threats?

I was trying to install some time tracking applications: Procrastitracker and Fruitful Time based on suggestions from this question.

Unfortunately, Avast keeps showing me messages about IDP.Alexa.51 and IDP generic in these apps respectively. Is there any way to know if such messages are false positives or if the file is actually harmful?

Thanks.