AVZ (Antiviral Toolkit) False Positive & Blacklist Removal
By DrGlenn — USA-based WordPress security specialist· 290+ cleanups across 34 countries· Updated June 22, 2026
Is AVZ (Antiviral Toolkit) flagging your website or file?
If AVZ (Antiviral Toolkit) is flagging your site or a file — often as manual-toolkit suspicious/heuristic findings (not standardized labels) — it is either a real infection or a false positive. Here is how to get it cleared.
Step 1 — Confirm it is really a false positive
Do not request removal while malware is still present, or the flag returns. Check first:
- Run my free Is My Site Hacked? checker.
- Cross-check on VirusTotal.
If anything turns up, get it fully cleaned first — deleting the visible malware is not enough if a backdoor remains.
Step 2 — Report the false positive to AVZ (Antiviral Toolkit)
AVZ is a diagnostic toolkit by Oleg Zaitsev; report via the author site or Kaspersky support. Submit here: z-oleg.com (author site)
- Note that AVZ is a manual diagnostic/anti-malware toolkit, not a VirusTotal scanning engine — it produces no automatic VirusTotal verdicts.
- If an AVZ script flags a file as suspicious, report it via z-oleg.com.
- Since AVZ is often run at Kaspersky’s request, you can also raise it with Kaspersky support.
- Re-check with a mainstream scanner to confirm.
Good to know: Still maintained by Oleg Zaitsev (a Kaspersky employee); distributed via z-oleg.com and Kaspersky support. Never a VirusTotal scanning engine.
Step 3 — If it keeps coming back
A detection that returns after you have been cleared almost always means the infection was never fully removed — usually a backdoor in a theme file, a rogue admin user, or malware in the database. That is exactly what I fix, as a USA-based WordPress security specialist who handles the cleanup and the delistings for you.
Get my site cleaned · See how it works · read my client reviews.
Frequently asked questions
How long does AVZ (Antiviral Toolkit) take to clear a false positive? Once the site/file is genuinely clean and you have submitted the request, most are resolved within a few days.
It keeps coming back — why? Because the real infection is still there. A full cleanup stops the loop.
More removal guides: Spybot Search & Destroy, ByteHero, Microsoft Defender SmartScreen · all vendor guides · full report-link directory.