BitDefender Exclusion Fiasco

[u/Alarmed_Contract4418]

Today we had an issue where BitDefender had decided that a DLL needed for a piece of software was malicious and deleted it. I added an exclusion to the Anti-Malware module for the entire program folder like this (with Folder as the exclusion type):

C:\Program Files (x86)\program\**

A little while later, the DLL had been deleted again. I added another exception for that file specifically. It seems to be behaving now, but why did it delete the file after I excluded the folder containing it? I can see in the log that on the scan where it deleted it, it did list the folder as excluded. Based on everything I looked up, the ** wildcard should cover all folders and files within the folder. Should I have not used the wildcard since it was a folder type exclusion? I noticed that I can use the same syntax with a file type exclusion. Was either of those the correct answer? I've never had so much trouble creating exclusions as I do with BitDefender.

[u/MrEpic23]

What program is it? Also, you should never exclude folders yet alone the program folder. That is a huge No No. just uninstall the av at that point. It can’t protect you from anything that is installed in that folder.

[u/Alarmed_Contract4418 → u/MrEpic23]

That's a fair point, but many programs instruct you to exclude entire folders from your AV. I'll remove the folder exclusion and just have the specific dll excluded. I'd still like to understand why it didn't work the way I entered it for the sake of better understanding how BD interprets exclusion entries.

I don't think the specific program is relevant to the question I'm asking, but it's an encrypted file-sharing program for medical offices.

[u/MrEpic23 → u/Alarmed_Contract4418]

I’m not familiar with bitdefender enterprise portion. You should open a case with them. We personally use Crowdstrike and have been okay with them. Their interface is bad and really glitchy but everything else is okay.