File verdict·Decided by the MT AI Engine
Our call

Safe

Plain-text file with zero malicious detections across 61 antivirus engines and no suspicious behaviour indicators.

Trust score92High trust
ReadMe.txt
282 B
4f86ce4e5f6a24f04e30512054f7
Antivirus engines
0 of 75 flagged
Code signing
Unsigned
Age
First seen 2mo 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 benign text document with zero malicious detections across a comprehensive antivirus network. The tier-1 engine consensus is unanimously clean, and no heuristic rules fired. There are no indicators of code execution, network communication, or payload delivery. The file's age (54 days) and medium prevalence (7 submitters) are consistent with a legitimate shared document. No adversarial filename patterns, brand mismatches, or external intelligence hits were detected.

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: 0/61 malicious, 17/17 tier-1 engines reporting undetected (Avast, BitDefender, Kaspersky, Microsoft, ESET, Fortinet, Ikarus, DrWeb, Emsisoft, F-Secure, GData, Avira, AVG)

  2. fileType=Text, size=282 bytes, no PE structure, no imphash — plain-text document with no executable capability

  3. adversarialInputFlags.anyInjectionSuspected=false; filenameAnalysis all false (no security-software or research-tool indicators)

  4. behaviour=null, droppedChildren=null, contactedHosts=null, externalIntel all negative (CIRCL, MalwareBazaar, YARAify no hits)

  5. prevalence.classification=medium (7 submitters, 7 submissions); triggeredHeuristics=[] (no heuristic rules fired)

Points in its favour
  • Zero malicious detections across 61 antivirus engines
  • 17 tier-1 vendors unanimously report undetected
  • No executable code, no PE structure, plain-text format only
  • No sandbox behaviour, no dropped files, no network contact
  • No heuristic rules triggered; no external intelligence hits
What to do

This file is safe. No quarantine or further analysis is needed. You may open and use it without concern.

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-117 engines
0flag
Top commercial AVs (low FP rate)
Tier-241 engines
0flag
Mainstream engines with mixed FP rates
Low-trust17 engines
0flag
Heuristic / generic-AI engines (high FP rate)
All 75 engines report this file as clean.
Hash 4f86ce4e5f6a… 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
7
Moderate upload volume.
Total submissions
7
Includes repeat uploads by the same source.
First seen by VT
2mo ago
May 19, 2026
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)
5/19/2026, 9:08:03 AM
First seen (MalwareBazaar)
Last analysis (VT)
5/19/2026, 9:08:03 AM
Scanned here
7/12/2026, 4:36:59 AM
File name
ReadMe.txt
Size
282 B
MIME type
(unknown)
Detected type
Text
SHA-256
4f86ce4e5f6a24f04ef509da0b5c7d1a9892b0722bd71a2eba78bc30512054f7
MD5
e52dec041b9a21f0ad6e35e045821124
SHA-1
d850e7c20f40520bf0ff09b3297b0d0dce7c318a
First seen (VT)
5/19/2026, 9:08:03 AM
Last analysis (VT)
5/19/2026, 9:08:03 AM
First scan (MalwareTips)
7/12/2026, 4:37:00 AM
Last scan (MalwareTips)
7/12/2026, 4:36:59 AM
Behavior tags
text
Frequently asked

Safety FAQ

Common questions about ReadMe.txt, answered from the scan data above.

  • ReadMe.txt appears safe. 75 of 75 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.
  • ReadMe.txt is a file, about 282 bytes. 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 75 antivirus engines we queried report ReadMe.txt 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 ReadMe.txt is 4f86ce4e5f6a24f04ef509da0b5c7d1a9892b0722bd71a2eba78bc30512054f7, and its MD5 is e52dec041b9a21f0ad6e35e045821124. 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 — ReadMe.txt 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 12, 2026. Because a file's hash never changes, the identity of ReadMe.txt 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.