Why does my antivirus flag "rslogix5000_import.exe" as being malicious?

The following file is flagged by Symantec antivirus as being malicious: Risk name: Trojan.Gen.8!cloud File path: "C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2017a\toolbox\plccoder\tools\scripts\rslogix5000_import.exe". Is this file malicious?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

These files are generated from an external tool called AutoIt to enable automatic import of our generated code from PLC Coder into various PLC IDEs. The file in question is used for Rockwell import. If the customer is not using Rockwell IDE, then they will not lose any functionality at all. If they do use Rockwell PLCs, then the automatic import will not work without this file.

The bottom line is that the PLC Coder exe files are safe and they are not malware, the malware detection seen by customers are false positives by antivirus software.

The autoit website has dedicated page on autoit and malware:

https://www.autoitscript.com/wiki/AutoIt_and_Malware