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What happens when I 'quarantine' a virus or worm?

Posted By : of Data Doctors on May 27, 2002

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On a virus scan a few weeks ago, the program (Norton AntiVirus) advised that (a) file was infected with a Trojan Horse virus. I followed directions to repair the problem, but was advised that it could not be repaired and the file should be quarantined. So far I have not found what effect this quarantined file is having on the operation of my computer.

- Marie

This question was answered on May 27, 2002. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


The virus and worm threat continues to grow in leaps and bounds on a daily basis As of this writing, there are over 61,000 known virus threats and that number grows by as many as 10 new discoveries per day!

In 1992, there were roughly 1300 known viruses, with most of them spreading slowly through floppy disk transfers The Internet, in all its glory, has given the ‘cyber-thugs’ that write viruses and worms an almost instantaneous method for spreading them, which has helped in the 4700% increase in the past decade.

At that rate, we will have almost 3 million different viruses to deal with ten years from now…

It is very dangerous to operate a computer without any anti-virus software these days and is critical if you use e-mail, even on a casual basis.

The sophistication of anti-virus programs continues to increase, which in turn is creating some confusion as they add new features.

Some years ago, when an anti-virus program detected an infected file, your choices were to repair or delete the file If the file could not be repaired, it had to be deleted.

As time went on, the ‘quarantine’ feature was added as a third option (and is usually the primary option when a file can not be repaired).

The reason for the quarantine option is to allow for a possible future ‘repair’ procedure that could be created, which would allow you to salvage the file.

Think of it as computer ‘cryogenics’ that allows you to bring the file back to life when a future process for doing so is created.

Many users often view the ‘quarantined’ file as a threat that still exists within the computer that could ‘jump out and infect the system again’ or believe the system to be infected if the quarantined file resides on the computer.

The reality is that it is truly ‘quarantined’ by the anti-virus program and has been removed from the operating system and the actual workings of the computer

It would take a somewhat sophisticated user to be able to access these files (outside of the anti-virus program) and use them to re-infect the system.

If your program can quarantine files, it will also have a feature that will allow you to try to repair these files with new updates or delete them at any time In most cases, the file being quarantined is some obscure attachment or Temp file that has no real value or if the file had value, by the time the ‘repair’ routine has been created, the file has little or no relevance.

If you keep your anti-virus program updated, in most cases, the only files that are being quarantined are those that are sent to you by another infected user If this is the case, just delete the file instead of quarantining it (look for the ‘delete’ option when the quarantine question comes up).

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of Data Doctors on May 27, 2002

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