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I received a call from someone saying that I sent them a word / excel file that has a heuristic virus what does that mean?

April 26, 2017Excel file heuristic mean received sent virus word

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I received a call from someone saying that I sent them a word / excel file that has a heuristic virus what does that mean?

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A heuristic virus is not really a virus, it’s a program / file that could potentially contain a virus. What the virus engine is doing is warning you that while it cannot match the program/file with any known viruses it looks like it could be a virus so be careful. Word and Excel files containing macros are often times flagged with the “heuristic virus” message. If you were not expecting a file from the sender you may want to be cautious about opening the file. If this was an expected email you should feel safe opening the file. If the mail system stops the message have the sender zip up the word/excel file and resend it.