Trusted zone

Trusted zone is the user-created list of objects which should not be controlled by the application. In other words, it is a set of exclusions from the protection scope of Kaspersky Anti-Virus.

Trusted zone is created based on the list of trusted applications and exclusion rules, with regard for features of the objects being processed and applications installed on the computer. Including objects into the trusted zone may be required if, for example, Kaspersky Anti-Virus blocks access to an object or application although you are assured that this object / application is absolutely harmless.

For example, if you think objects being used by Microsoft Windows Notepad to be harmless and require no scan, thus trusting this application, add Notepad into the list of trusted applications to exclude scan of objects being used by this process.

Some actions classified as dangerous may be stated as safe by a number of applications. Thus, applications that automatically toggle keyboard layouts, such as Punto Switcher, regularly intercept text being entered on your keyboard. To take into account the specifics of such applications and disable the monitoring of their activity, you are advised to add them to the list of trusted applications.

When an application is added into the list of trusted ones, its file and network activities (including suspicious ones) become uncontrolled. So do its attempts to access the system registry. At the same time, the executable file and the trusted application’s process is scanned for viruses as they were before. To completely exclude an application from the scan, you should use exclusion rules.

Excluding trusted applications from the scan allows to avoid problems of the application’s compatibility with other programs (e.g. the problems of double scanning of network traffic of a third-party computer by Kaspersky Anti-Virus and by another anti-virus application), as well as increase the computer’s performance rate which is critical when using server applications.

In its turn, exclusion rules of trusted zone ensure secure work with riskware. Riskware per se does not have malicious features but it may be used as an auxiliary component of a malicious application. This category includes remote administration applications, IRC clients, FTP servers, various utility tools for halting or concealing processes, keyloggers, password hacking programs, dialers, and others. Such applications may be blocked by Kaspersky Anti-Virus. To avoid blockage, you can configure exclusion rules.

Exclusion rule – is a set of conditions which determine that an object should not be scanned by Kaspersky Anti-Virus. In any other case, the object is scanned by all protection components according to their respective protection settings.

Exclusion rules of trusted zone may be used by several application components, such as File Anti-Virus, Mail Anti-Virus, Web Anti-Virus, or when running virus scan tasks.

In this section:

Creating a list of trusted applications

Creating the exclusion rules

Trusted zone