[clamav-users] Nonsensical noreplies from ClamAV team

[Alessandro Vesely]

Hi all,

even though I filter incoming messages with ClamAV, last Monday I received a mail with two suspicious attachments.  They were PE32+ executable (DLL) (GUI) x86-64, for MS Windows.  I uploaded the samples to virustotal.com, who reported they were recognized as troyans.  I saved the viral message and uploaded it to https://www.clamav.net/reports/malware.  On Tuesday I received the following message:

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	ClamAV.net - Your malware submission
Date: 	Tue, 16 Nov 2021 07:23:26 +0000 (UTC)
From: 	noreply at clamav.com
To: 	vesely at tana.it



Alessandro Vesely,

Thank you again for your submission.

Your File:
purchase-ORD (SHA256: 2ac2bb49a9135954a298cbb3e52b3ecfcb1e5e2dc6d83fac7052d4c3833ac11a)


Our initial assessment shows that this file is possibly clean. If you provided a description that suggests otherwise, we will further examine the sample & proceed from there.

-The ClamAV team
-------- End Of Forwarded Message --------


"If you provided" looked like a future unreal conditional to me.  It is certainly unreal, given the From:.  Anyway, I replied something like the following text:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/40392920e907b85591dac15d2f4ca49a477e0401abb3334cda2b45a9a513fd58
10 security vendors flagged this file as malicious
40392920e907b85591dac15d2f4ca49a477e0401abb3334cda2b45a9a513fd58
Notificaion-30714_20211115.xll

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/8c0b4c9fe9e49b8eaf449aad36ebb39235835ab2c3a49584be7d0697ecb82c21
11 security vendors flagged this file as malicious
8c0b4c9fe9e49b8eaf449aad36ebb39235835ab2c3a49584be7d0697ecb82c21
Document-055293_20211115.xll


However, on Wednesday it bounced, because ClamAV's mail server, tad.clamav.net, is persistently down.  I thought that was a temporary hiccup and pehaps the ClamAV team wasn't even aware of it.  So I saved the bounce, which contained the whole original message, and uploaded it to the same location, explaining that the attachment was a reply to their message, not a sample.  Guess what I received on Thursday?


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	ClamAV.net - Your malware submission
Date: 	Thu, 18 Nov 2021 08:52:21 +0000 (UTC)
From: 	noreply at clamav.com
To: 	vesely at tana.it



Alessandro Vesely,

Thank you again for your submission.

Your File:
reply-to-Clamav-Team (SHA256: e9876ec9577e7c1b4a38236a6d18306e57e618a46d4bcfd1837cfd7e9238c281)


Our initial assessment shows that this file is possibly clean. If you provided a description that suggests otherwise, we will further examine the sample & proceed from there.

-The ClamAV team
-------- End Of Forwarded Message --------


What's the purpose of such messages?


Meanwhile, tad.clamav.net is still down.

Best
Ale
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