6. How to submit malware

If you suspect that a file may be infected, you should send it by email to in a password protected zip archive, so that we can analyze it and see if it's indeed a new kind of malware.

It is very important to remember that any possible malware should be send in a password protected archive, otherwise it may be caught on it's way to destination by another antivirus solution running on a mailserver, and we may never have the chance to study it and send you our diagnosis.

Write the password of the archive in the email.

• To make a password protected zip archive in Windows, you should do the following:
  If you don't have a zip archiving program for creating password protected zip archives, you can download and install the evaluation version of WinZip (please take note that Avira doesn't recommend, warrant or support the WinZip software program. You can resort to any other zipping program, capable of covering the processes below. For any questions about using your zipping program, please contact its provider).
  Start the WinZip program, click on the "New" button, choose the name "virus.zip" for the archive (without the quotes) and click "OK". In the new window that appears, choose the suspicious file to add, check "Encrypt added files", and then enter password for the archive: "infected" (without the quotes). Also make sure that "Zip 2.0 compatible encryption is checked". Click "OK".
• To make a password protected zip archive in Linux, you should do the following:
  Please make sure first that you have the "zip" package installed. The installation method may differ according to the version.
  
  To create the password protected archive, open a terminal, and use the following command:
  zip -e [name_of_the_archive] [path_to_the_suspicious_file]
  where:
  name_of_the_archive = virus.zip
  path_to_the_suspicious_file = the path to the file that you consider to be suspicious
  When prompted, enter "infected" as a password (without the quotes), and confirm it after that.

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