To Symantec tech support,
We had quite a few incidents recently where a plain text file was marked as “malformed container” by Symantec virus scanner. Such error is supposed to flag files like corrupted PDF files that can’t be opened by Adobe Reader.
I attached one example text file in this message. For this specific file, to find the real cause I chopped it into separated partial files and then fed them into the virus scanner to locate the problematic lines. I found it is around line 14-15, but after I visually inspected the problematic lines using a HEX editor, I found no abnormal characters there.
The temporary solution advised by Symantec tech service on 3/28 was to turn off the setting of the server that reports malformed containers. The side effect is that those true positives, like corrupted PDF files, won’t be flagged in future. Therefore, we would like to request your further research into this matter to see whether it was caused by a bug in your product.
Hongyu Zhang | Senior Java Developer | Guidance Software, Inc.
1055 E. Colorado Blvd. | Pasadena, CA 91106-2375
Office: 626-229-9191 ext. 4765 | Direct 626-768-4765 | Fax: 626-229-9199