File verdict·Decided by the MT AI Engine
Our call

Safe

Old, widely submitted ICO file with zero detections across 58 engines and no behavioural or signing concerns.

Trust score92High trust
rct2.ico
2.2 KB
253b073e56898c71dfaf66fa4a75
Antivirus engines
0 of 76 flagged
Code signing
Unsigned
Age
First seen 10y ago
MT AI Engine · Verdict analysis

The reasoning behind this verdict

The MT AI Engine weighs every signal from this scan — antivirus detections, sandbox behaviour, code signing, prevalence and historical matches — to reach a single, evidence-based verdict.

95%Confidence
Very high
Reasoning

All 58 reporting engines returned clean results with no tier-1 or low-trust malicious flags. The file is a small, unsigned ICO with a 2016 first-seen date and seven historical submissions. No sandbox behaviour, dropped children, contacted hosts, or YARA/CIRCL hits exist. Filename and prevalence patterns align with a benign icon asset rather than any malware category.

Key signals · 4

Each signal cites a concrete token from the evidence the arbiter saw — engine name, MITRE technique, signer string, or an exact count.

  1. engines.malicious=0 and engines.tier1Malicious=0 across 58 reporting engines

  2. prevalence.classification=medium with firstSubmissionDate 2016-02-03

  3. file.fileType=ICO and file.fileSize=2238 bytes

  4. signing.signed=false with no brandMismatch or triggeredHeuristics

Points in its favour
  • Zero engine detections across 58 reporters
  • 3819-day submission history with medium prevalence
  • No sandbox, network, or child-process activity
Recommended action

Treat as a benign icon file; no security action needed.

What to do now

This file looks safe based on everything we checked.

  1. This file is safe to use.

  2. Good habit: only download files from the official website or an app store.

  3. Keep your antivirus and Windows updates switched on so you stay protected.

No researcher-database hits
External threat-intel sources were not collected for this scan.
Antivirus engine breakdown

0 detections across 76 engines

0 malicious0 suspicious76 clean
Tier-118 engines
0flag
Top commercial AVs (low FP rate)
Tier-242 engines
0flag
Mainstream engines with mixed FP rates
Low-trust16 engines
0flag
Heuristic / generic-AI engines (high FP rate)
All 76 engines report this file as clean.
Hash 253b073e5689… cross-referenced against 76 AV engines via our AV network.
Prevalence

How widely this file has been seen

Moderate prevalence — neither rare nor common. No strong prior applies.

Medium
Unique uploaders
7
Moderate upload volume.
Total submissions
7
Includes repeat uploads by the same source.
First seen
10y ago
Feb 2, 2016
Prevalence quadrant
Rare · New
Targeted malware lives here
Common · New
Just-released software
Rare · Old
Niche or internal tooling
Common · Old
Trusted legitimate binaries
File identity

Forensic fingerprint

File biography
First seen (VT)
2/2/2016, 10:13:09 PM
First seen (MalwareBazaar)
Last analysis (VT)
2/1/2024, 3:20:43 AM
Scanned here
7/19/2026, 7:56:14 AM
File name
rct2.ico
Size
2.2 KB
MIME type
(unknown)
Detected type
ICO
SHA-256
253b073e56898c71df8c91debfb405afb4f88f5267175c5e41d3c7af66fa4a75
MD5
718b2d25c56cdba35341244f73b99bab
SHA-1
37b9ab17aed61ee21b1c3c7275394f6d183077cb
First seen (VT)
2/2/2016, 10:13:09 PM
Last analysis (VT)
2/1/2024, 3:20:43 AM
First scan (MalwareTips)
7/19/2026, 7:56:14 AM
Last scan (MalwareTips)
7/19/2026, 7:56:14 AM
Behavior tags
ico
Frequently asked

Safety FAQ

Common questions about rct2.ico, answered from the scan data above.

  • rct2.ico appears safe. 76 of 76 antivirus engines report it clean. As a habit, only open files you downloaded from the official source, since attackers sometimes distribute trojanised copies of legitimate software under the same name.
  • rct2.ico is a file, about 2 KB. Our analysis found no threat indicators for it. A file's name can be reused by different files, so we identify it by its cryptographic hash (below).
  • None — all 76 antivirus engines we queried report rct2.ico as clean. That's reassuring, though brand-new malware can briefly evade detection before vendors add signatures, so we also weigh the file's behaviour and reputation.
  • The SHA-256 hash of rct2.ico is 253b073e56898c71df8c91debfb405afb4f88f5267175c5e41d3c7af66fa4a75, and its MD5 is 718b2d25c56cdba35341244f73b99bab. This hash is the file's unique fingerprint — two files with the same SHA-256 are identical. Use it to confirm you're looking at exactly this file (not just one with the same name) when comparing against antivirus databases or a download's published checksum.
  • Based on this scan, yes — rct2.ico shows no threat indicators. The important caveat is source: make sure you downloaded it from the official website or a trusted store, because attackers sometimes distribute malware-laced copies under a legitimate file's name. If your own antivirus flags it while we report it clean, that is most often a false positive, but verify the source before overriding your antivirus.
  • This report reflects the scan run on July 19, 2026. Because a file's hash never changes, the identity of rct2.ico is fixed — but antivirus coverage improves over time, so a file that looks clean today can pick up detections later (and vice-versa). If you need the latest picture, MalwareTips staff can re-run the analysis from scratch.
Community classification

Reviews & malware reports(0)

Tell the community what you saw. Tag the sample — Trojan, Adware, False Positive — and share what the file did on your system. Your report helps confirm or dispute the AV verdict.

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Files are processed in a streaming pass-through — MalwareTips never stores the binary on its servers. Only the scan result (hash, detections, verdict) is retained so the next person who scans the same file gets an instant answer. If you ran this file on your computer and are worried, scan your system with an up-to-date antivirus and change critical passwords from a different device.