Core Shields Settings

This Article Applies to:

Essential/Premium/Ultimate Business Security
Small Office Protection

These settings are propagated across all of the main Shields in Essential/Premium/Ultimate Business Security or Small Office Protection: File Shield, Web Shield, Mail Shield, and Behavior Shield. You can access these settings by clicking Menu ▸ Settings, then navigating to Protection ▸ Core Shields.

Sensitivity

In this section of the Core Shields settings, you can determine the sensitivity of the shields. The higher the sensitivity, the higher the protection and potential for false positive malware detections. Reducing the sensitivity reduces the chance of false positive detections, but may also reduce the effectiveness of the Core Shields. Sensitivity can be adjusted to Medium, High, or Low sensitivity by dragging the slider.

Behavior

In this section of the Core Shields settings, select the tab for Virus or Potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), and define the actions to be performed when each type of virus is found on your PC. Configure the following behavior settings:

Actions: select which action Avast applies when Viruses and Potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) are detected

Enable CyberCapture Technology: define how you want to treat a threat on your PC

Always block a threat: allows Avast to block the threat automatically
Ask me about decision: receive a notification every time a threat is detected on your PC

Enable Hardened Mode: uses information based on reputation services to determine which executable files are safe to open

Enable Rootkit detection: enables Avast to monitor hidden malicious threats in the system. Unticking this option may resolve potential compatibility issues that can cause system crashes

Enable Exploit detection: enables Avast to detect and block attempts to run malicious threats or processes in the memory from exploiting vulnerable applications on your PC. Unticking this option may result in potential compatibility issues that can cause system crashes. This option enables the Anti-exploit Shield.

Shield Reports

Generate report file: enables Avast to create and store a report file automatically. The report file location is listed beneath this option.

Specific Shield Settings

To configure settings for specific Shields, see the following articles: