File verdict·Decided by the MT AI Engine
Our call

Safe

9-byte README.md text file with zero detections across 61 engines including 18 tier-1 vendors; established benign history.

Trust score92High trust
MT AI confidence · 98%
README.md
9 B
305768a33f04b1dce9d641b26b87
Antivirus engines
0 of 75 flagged
Code signing
Unsigned
Age
First seen 3y ago
MT AI Engine · our arbiter

The verdict, reasoned out.

Not a rules engine. The MT AI Engine reads every signal we collected, weighs them against history, and commits to an answer.

98%Confidence
Very high
Reasoning

The file is a minimal text document with no executable content, no binary structure, and no obfuscation. Zero detections across 61 reporting engines, including high-trust vendors (Kaspersky, Microsoft, BitDefender, ESET-NOD32, Fortinet, McAfee), establish a unanimous clean verdict. No adversarial input flags, no sandbox behaviour data, no malicious host contact, and no external intelligence hits (CIRCL, YARAify, MalwareBazaar) provide additional confidence. The medium prevalence classification (15 submitters, 16 submissions since January 2023) indicates this is a well-known benign file rather than a new or suspicious sample.

Key signals · 5

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

  1. engines.tier1Malicious=0; 18 tier-1 engines (Avast, BitDefender, Kaspersky, Microsoft, ESET-NOD32, Fortinet, McAfee, others) all report undetected

  2. engines.malicious=0, engines.suspicious=0 across 61 reporting engines — zero detections

  3. fileType='Text', fileName='README.md', fileSize=9 bytes — consistent with benign documentation

  4. prevalence.classification='medium' with 15 unique submitters over 1261 days — established benign file history

  5. No adversarial input, no signing metadata, no sandbox behaviour, no external intel hits, no triggered heuristics — complete absence of threat signals

Points in its favour
  • Zero detections across 61 antivirus engines
  • 18 tier-1 vendors all report undetected
  • Plain-text file type with trivial 9-byte size
  • 1261-day submission history across 15 independent sources
  • No adversarial input, no sandbox behaviour, no external intel hits
What to do

This file is safe. No further analysis or quarantine is necessary. It can be freely opened and used.

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

0 detections across 75 engines

0 malicious0 suspicious75 clean
Tier-118 engines
0flag
Top commercial AVs (low FP rate)
Tier-239 engines
0flag
Mainstream engines with mixed FP rates
Low-trust18 engines
0flag
Heuristic / generic-AI engines (high FP rate)
All 75 engines report this file as clean.
Hash 305768a33f04… cross-referenced against 75 AV engines via our AV network.
Prevalence

How often this file shows up in the wild

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

Medium
Unique uploaders
15
Moderate upload volume.
Total submissions
16
Includes repeat uploads by the same source.
First seen by VT
3y ago
Jan 12, 2023
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)
1/12/2023, 7:30:07 AM
First seen (MalwareBazaar)
Last analysis (VT)
1/12/2023, 7:30:07 AM
Scanned here
6/26/2026, 4:35:28 PM
File name
README.md
Size
9 B
MIME type
(unknown)
Detected type
Text
SHA-256
305768a33f04b1dce98f939794f0c2007cdb9e2b9c9a8b0d81e2c0d641b26b87
MD5
fd114aba049ae21ebcfd59a2f80cdca1
SHA-1
263f0f9990696ed31fb900aba068ccad72743963
First seen (VT)
1/12/2023, 7:30:07 AM
Last analysis (VT)
1/12/2023, 7:30:07 AM
First scan (MalwareTips)
6/26/2026, 4:35:28 PM
Last scan (MalwareTips)
6/26/2026, 4:35:28 PM
Behavior tags
text
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.