[Morania]

I'm posting this in here since it doesn't really have to do with virus removal.
My Norton Anti-virus scan was coming up with an entry for Hacktool, with no "dot something or other." It was really starting to worry me and after a bit of clicking in their not-so-intuitive design, it turns out that the offending file was in a download folder. It was a simple license number finder that I had downloaded a ling time ago from CNET. Quite harmless.

I'm pleased that Symantec can find little bad things like that but I had wished that it was a little more clear where it had found it.

This probably isn't an earth shattering post but I thought I'd share anyway.

[Frank4d]

Norton Anti-virus identifies Magical Jellybean Keyfinder, ComboFix and AngryIP Scanner as malware (which they are not) but doesn't do a very good job detecting and removing real threats.

[Morania]

This program wasn't even installed. It was still in zip form in its original folder..

I use Search and Destroy with great results to check for spy/malware.

[Cookiegal]

Many programs get detected as hacktools because of the nature of what they do (their ability to penetrate your system and retrieve and/or alter data). Even legit ones can be used for malicious purposes and may have been installed without your knowledge. Therefore, it's important that they be detected and it's up to the user to do the research to see why this is on their system and whether it is something they know about or want.

Norton creates logs that should identify the location of what was detected although with some program's interfaces it's not always easy to find them.

[Morania]

Identifiying the location of the file was the stumper. Maybe it was there the whole time, but I finally saw a link for more info that showed the file path.

It would be helpful of them to identify it as a generic hacktool so I don't think I have a real baddy after some Google searches.

[Cookiegal]

The problem is the scanner cannot always determine a legit hacktool from a malicious one as they all could have that potential.