Case-sensitive Scanning

[Amaroq_Starwind]

Does Malwarebytes have the ability to scan case-sensitive files and directories? If not, then I strongly feel like that ability should be added, especially since Windows supports case-sensitive files and directories now, and cross-platform threats are becoming increasingly common.

[exile360]

Unless there have been new developments in Windows 10 that I'm unaware of, paths cannot be identical with the only difference being case (the same is true for the registry last I checked), however it's moot anyways since Malwarebytes will scan the locations and items it always scans regardless of case/filename, so I'm not sure what it is exactly that is being requested here.  For example, Malwarebytes wouldn't skip a file or folder just because its name is all lowercase or uppercase if that's what you're referring to.

[Amaroq_Starwind]

Windows 10, by default, reserves Case-sensitive filenames/folders for the Linux subsystem, but there is a registry change you can make to enforce Case-sensitivity for Windows programs as well, and you can use PowerShell to set specific folders to be Case-sensitive.

[exile360]

But what does case sensitivity actually do?  Does it allow you to place two files or two folders in the same directory with the same name as long as the case differs between them, or is it just a cosmetic thing which they're using to differentiate Linux filesystem objects?  I ask because I can currently name files upper, lower or mixed case in Windows 7 (and any other Windows version) and it makes absolutely no difference as far as other programs reading/parsing them/their names.  How is 10 different in that regard?

[Amaroq_Starwind]

It actually lets you place different files or folders next to eachother with different names. If you set a folder to be Case-sensitive for Windows programs however however, it isn't a Recursive property, so you'd need to repeat this step for subfolders or you might not be able to access the contents of one of them.

[exile360]

I see, so if enabled it allows you to, for example, have two files in the same folder with one named "file.exe" and another one named "FILE.exe" without any conflicts?  Interesting, I wonder how they're accomplishing that, whether it's through a new native function/API or some kind of hack like Cyrillic where the same character (visually) is treated as/read as a different character (actually an old trick used by malware to imitate legitimate system files without replacing them, rendering their processes visually identical in tools such as Task Manager, though detection by malware scanners is quite trivial as programmatically they look totally different, though the engine needs to know how to process those characters without getting tripped up or stuck; something Malwarebytes had to address long ago back when I was still working on it).

[Amaroq_Starwind]

You can get more information on this from Microsoft's blog. I can't wait to see scanning of case-sensitive files and directories implemented.