As hard as Microsoft tries to secure Windows, there are always a few malware or viruses that fly under the radar and end up infecting Windows. These are usually caught by antivirus programs installed on users, but there are often cases of false positives being found as well.

In this article, we’re going over IDP.Generic, whether or not it’s a virus and should you remove it or ignore the message from your antivirus software.

Is IDP.Generic a virus?

IDP.Generic triggers are often caused by the identity protection component of your antivirus. It’s also a rather general threat class, which can be triggered by several files.

While the triggered file may as well be a virus, the detection will often be a false positive. However, you should always confirm this by either running the file through another antivirus to see if it triggers the same error or uploading it to VirusTotal — a cloud-based tool that can scan individual files for malware or virus infections.

If the file does turn out to be a false positive, you can safely ignore it and tell your antivirus to do the same. However, in case a second antivirus or VirusTotal does detect an infection on your file, it’s best if you scan your entire computer for any other malware that you might have and remove any infectious file detected.

Also read: How to disable anti-virus in Windows 10?

Should you remove IDP.Generic?

As mentioned above, when you run into a file that is indicated as infected by your antivirus, you should first check if it’s a false positive. Unless the file isn’t infected, we don’t recommend removing it as it can cause problems with whatever program uses the file.

Remember to update your antivirus and Windows before running the scan, as it’ll reduce the possibility of any false positives being detected.

However, if it is infected, you should boot into your PC’s safe mode, run a full scan using your antivirus program of choice and remove any files flagged as infected.

Here’s how you can boot your PC into safe mode

Step 1: Press the Windows key and search for Safe Mode. Click the corresponding search result.