Anti-Virus Policy

Egnyte is designed to be a part of the customer’s overall enterprise architecture which traditionally contains endpoint anti-virus mitigation as a best practice. With this in mind, Egnyte is not an anti-virus solution although it does provide some supporting technology to augment anti-virus remediation efforts.

Currently, Egnyte scans files for viruses received through Upload Links and quarantines the files if they’re infected. Egnyte's Enhanced Malware Protection scans all uploaded data for threats, quarantines infected files, and notifies administrators and users to ensure the security and privacy of the  domain. We recommend that all customers should maintain their own anti-virus software and scan all of the local sources before migrating data to Egnyte. 
 

Best Practices

Antivirus Whitelisting

This section applies to the Desktop App, whether connected through Adaptive Block Caching (ABC) / Smart Cache or directly to the cloud.

For optimal performance and reliability, ensure that real-time scanning is enabled on desktop or laptop hard drives, and that the Egnyte Desktop App is properly excluded from antivirus scanning where required.

 

Desktop App for Windows

Egnyte recommends excluding the Egnyte Desktop App installation directory from antivirus scanning.

The default installation paths are:

• Versions up to 4.1.0:

  C:\Program Files (x86)\Egnyte Connect\

• Version 4.2.0 and later:

  C:\Program Files\Egnyte Connect\

In environments where multiple versions may be present (for example during upgrades), it is recommended to exclude both locations.

If the antivirus solution requires more granular configuration, ensure that the following Desktop App and Adaptive Block Caching (ABC) processes are also excluded:

• EgnyteClient.exe
• EgnyteDrive.exe
• EgnyteSyncService.exe
• EgnyteUpdate.exe
• EgnyteDriveCollaborationProvider.exe
• EgnyteHelpViewer.exe
• CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.exe
• SmartCache.exe
• Screcover.exe
• Scgetmeta.exe
• Sccu.exe
• Fallback.exe

 

Desktop App Core for Mac

Application installation directory:

• /Applications/Egnyte.app/

If the antivirus solution requires more granular configuration, whitelist the following processes:

• EgnyteXPCBroker
• EgnyteUpgradeChecker
• EgnyteFpSyncService
• EgnyteFinderSync
• EgnyteFileProvider
• SmartCache
• sccu
• Scgetmeta

For deployments using ABC, the following SMB utilities should also be excluded from antivirus scanning. These are included in the application installation directory and are covered by the exclusion above. If explicit path exclusions are required: open Terminal and run find /Applications/Egnyte.app/ -name "<utility>" (for example, find /Applications/Egnyte.app/ -name "smbd") to get the full path for each utility: 

• net
• pdbedit
• smbclient
• smbd
• smbpasswd
• smbstatus
• Share_mng.sh
• Logrotate

 

Desktop App for Mac (Legacy)

For Mac devices, add the following processes

• EgnyteDrive
• Egnyte Drive Finder Extension
• EgnyteDriveFS
• EgnyteSyncService

 

Additional Exclusions for Desktop App

• Ensure that scheduled or full-disk scans do not traverse the Egnyte drive or volume. Scanning the entire drive forces the Desktop App to retrieve and cache metadata for every folder, which can significantly degrade performance and delay startup.
• Windows: the local cache folder `C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Egnyte Connect`
• Mac (Desktop App Core): the Egnyte drive at `/Users/<username>/Library/CloudStorage/Egnyte-<drive_label>` (one per connected drive)
• Mac (ABC / Smart Cache): the cache folders `~/Library/egnyte-scda/cache/` and `/usr/local/eg-scache/`
• Locate and exclude the Egnyte drive letter in Windows or Volume in Mac.
  
  
• Endpoint data loss prevention (DLP) solutions, such as Microsoft Purview Endpoint DLP, can interact with Desktop App file operations even after antivirus exclusions are applied. If an endpoint DLP solution is in use, add the Egnyte drive and the cache folders listed above to its file path exclusions. If slow file access or synchronization issues persist, contact Egnyte Support — we are actively working to improve interoperability with endpoint DLP solutions.