Bitcoin Forum

I'm not sure what the right forum for this is, here, or in the Technical forum, but I figure it'll get read more here, so I'm posting here...

My computer (Windows 7 64 bit) was acting strange so I just ran a full virus scan.  It detected two viruses and one of them just happened to be in the blockchain.  It was detected in Bitcoin\Blocks\blk00129.dat.  Those of you running full nodes, especially on Windows, this would be a good time to run a virus scanner.  Avast caught this, I can't comment on any others.

i think thats a false flag.

some crap virus scanners dont detect actual viruses, they just have lists of filenames, and it happens to be that a certain old virus from the 1990's had a filename called blk00129.dat.

i kinda remember someone posting about this last year

Also, the blockchain is not meant to be used as an executable, so even if a virus binary is stored there, it doesn't matter.

 ::) https://i.imgur.com/fLh0JgU.gif

as long as you got bitcoin-core from bitcoin.org and you havnt been downloading crappy altcoin wallets or seeing them crappy "bitcoin generator" trojans on youtube, youshoud be safe.

but to be 100% sure, use the online free scans of mcafee or norton, etc to get a second opinion on the chance of you getting a virus

It avast bro, chill. I used to get a lot of false alarms from avast. Some parts of the files can seem fishy however.

There are virus signatures (eg 'stoned') which may be 10-15 bytes long in the blockchain. Those signatures are either purposely placed there in a transaction or random coincidences. Most probably done on purpose.  They don't mean the virus is there, just a pattern is.  There have been numerous discussions of this.

This is the last straw, I am selling every last Satoshi of BTC, right now.   ::)

That's a very crappy way of detecting malicious software. If you'd just rename the virus it would evade that virus scanner altogether. What a joke.

Virus scanners that scan your hard drive for viruses are pretty bad in the first place. You should have a virus scanner that blocks the download before you download it, that's way more efficient than trying to repair the damage after it is already done.

I can't believe you are running a full node and possibly a wallet on a computer without a proper virus scanner.

Its not the filename. There actually is part of an old MS-DOS virus (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/18/bitcoin_user_stoned_on_virus_warnings/) in the blockchain.
Fortunately its harmless.

Oh, I'm not running a wallet on this computer, I don't have a proper offline setup yet, but that's the only place I'll be putting bitcoins.  I just don't feel like paying for an anti-virus program that might not be any better than this one.  It's not the greatest security, I acknowledge, but I'm not putting my bitcoins at risk on this computer.

Anyway, I don't think Avast is that bad a virus scanner really, but it's probably not perfect either.

Like it was mentioned above, you don't actually "execute" the blockchain on your computer so any virus found on the blockchain will not actually be able to do anything to your computer.

It is just a piece of the virus that triggers the signature detection algorithm so it can't do anything.  I ran ClamWin a couple weeks ago and it found about 5 or 6 signatures in the blockchain files in addition to the "stoned" one that gets detected by many scanners.

That thing is like a time capsule of lulz :D

I don't think it is always possible to prevent a virus from being downloaded in the first place as the file could potentially be part of another file or the user could be tricked into overriding the virus scanner because they think the file is actually legit when it is not, or the virus could be introduced via some other means then being downloaded, or the virus is a 0 day attack and the virus scanner does not realize that it is a virus until after it receives an update.

There are a lot of....interesting....things on the blockchain from Bitcoin's earlier days

Then your virus scanner setting must be wrong, don't scan all files, just executable files.

Not a great idea either if you're relying on a virus scanner to keep you safe.  Malicious scripts can be run by opening non-executable files as well such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDF's, etc.  Virus scanners will sometimes catch these so should not be omitted from scans.

Virus scanners are pretty bad anyways.  Making a virus undetectable to any scanner is trivial.  I don't even bother installing a virus scanner at all, but rather I monitor my system's services, processes, network connections, etc.  If I feel that there is even a remote chance that an application or file is infected, it never leaves its own VM.

that title lie to me
i think what you mean blockchain is  bitcoin blockchain
from what i read the problem is in your PC
just try to clean in with other antivirus or anti malware, or change your OS to linux

probably someone stuck the files into the blockchain. Nothing to worry about.

I haven't used avast for last 5 years due to this kind of crap...it doesn't have the juice to catch a blockchain mole.

I know for a fact that Avast! is absolutely not a crap virus scanner.

Dump that Winblows shit out of your house and understand Linux is worlds above that crap. Come on people, it's time that you understand what's the best OS.

It is your shitty antivirus for sure if not could be a worm infecting all your blocks and your avast only detected the blocks not the virus itself.
If you gona keep using windows atleast buy a good antivirus like kaspersky or mcafee then scan it with that.
and if you are still fishy about the blocks upload the blk file to virustotal.com and check it.

You're wasting resources scanning the blockchain. Just add the Bitcoin folder to your antiviruses exclusion list.

http://classroom.synonym.com/make-exclusions-avast-16518.html

Virus scanners are not that stupid, DOC PPT XLS COM EXE VBS etc... are all considered "executable files", and will be scanned. But a .DAT file, you can't execute it by default, unless there's some 3rd party program installed that specifically make .DAT file executable.

There are viruses that are hidden in other files. For example someone could use macros in an excel spreadsheet to infect a virus into a computer. They are hidden in word documents and other similar types of files as well

avast says virus to my mining software too...

Since the day I started using anti-virus (avast).. It failed me a lot of times.

AVG  also picks that up, i think most anti - viruses do.

I think this is at the crux of the situation. The virus scanner could have mistaken a portion of the blockchain as having the same signature of some virus; but unless someone foolishly decided to clip out and execute the section (if it could run at all) nothing would happen.

I think it is virus code purposely embedded in the blockchain that was detected by the antivirus.

Is it possible? What will happen if my blockchain gets the virus?

Virus in blockchain? It seems not even possible. What will the virus do? Double spend you coin?  ::) ::)

Read the thread before posting, it makes you look stupid. This is just an old virus signature that causes a red flag in old antivirus software.