SoftActivity

Running Activity Monitor on computers protected by Symantec Antivirus 10

Some anti-virus and anti-spyware programs can detect such SoftActivity programs as Activity Monitor, Activity Monitor Agent and Activity Logger as spyware. To install SoftActivity software you must be the owner of the computer or authorized by the owner. In this case you may easily add SoftActivity programs to Exclude/Ignore/Exceptions list of your anti-spyware. Most of such programs provide such lists.
To monitor employee computers in your company or your home computer you need to install Activity Monitor Agent on the monitored computers. If you have Symantec Antivirus installed on the remote computer, it will prevent you from installing or running this program and report this attempt to the user. Follow these easy steps to safely disable Antivirus from detecting Activity Monitor Agent and stay protected by Antivirus.

Instructions for Symantec Antivirus 10 Corporate Client and Activity Monitor.

These instructions should be also valid or similar for other recent versions of Symantec Antivirus. In Corporate edition of Symantec Antivirus all described below changes to Antivirus Clients can be made from centralized Management Server.
For disabling detection of SoftActivity Activity Logger software instructions are basically the same, but you need to add Spyware.ActivityLog to lists of exclusions.

  1. Open Symantec Antivirus from Start menu or system tray
  2. Add Activity Monitor to list of Exceptions in Antivirus’s Manual Scan configuration.
  3. To do this start with the following. Open Scan->Custom Scan in the tree. Click Options… button
    am-sym1
  4. Click Actions button (not shown here). Select Security Risks->Spyware in list. Switch to Exceptions tab and click Add button on the bottom of the window.
    am-sym2
  5. Wait until Antivirus loads list of known spyware. Find Spyware.ActrivMonAgent in list. Mark a check box on its left and click Next
    am-sym3
  6. On the next page select First Action: Exclude. Hit Finish button. You will have Spyware.ActrivMonAgent added to the exceptions list. Click OK to save these settings.
    am-sym4
  7. Add Activity Monitor to list of Exceptions File System Auto-Protect
  8. To do this start with the following. Select Configure -> File System Auto-Protect in tree view. Click Actions button on the right
    am-sym5
  9. Repeat steps 4-6 and add Spyware.ActiveMonAgent to Auto-Protect Exceptions.
  10. Exclude Activity Monitor from Startup Scans. Open Starup Scan – Auto-Generated QuickScan, click Edit button:
    am-sym6
  11. Repeat steps 4-6 and add Spyware.ActiveMonAgent to Auto-Protect Exceptions for this Auto-Generated QuickScan. Repeat this for other custom scans in Startup Scans group
  12. Now Symantec will not detect and report neither Activity Monitor nor Activity Monitor Agent on this computer.
  13. Repeat these actions on all computers where you are going to install Activity Monitor Agent and Activity Monitor server part.
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By SoftActivity Team
May 20th, 2015