Question: I'm trying to create an exe using pyinstaller for a school project but, windows defender seems to report a virus threat and blocks the file. I want to send this exe to some other people but i wouldn't be able to do that unless I fix this. So these are my queries- Why does the exe file get reported as a virus? A quick scan on virus total says that 16 engines detect this file as a Trojan. Also, is there any way to prevent windows defender or any other antivirus from alerting users of a virus threat , I mean, is there any way to make my file look safe to antiviruses in case it was just a false threat? And in case that is not possible, what are the other safe alternatives to pyinstaller? I'm just a beginner so any tips would be really appreciated. Thanks. EDIT: as requested by @Pro Chess, ive included my script. import socket import threading import pickle class Server : def __init__(self) : self.HEADER = 64 self.PORT = 5050 self.SERVER = socket.gethostbyname(socket.gethostname()) self.ADDR = (self.SERVER, self.PORT) self.FORMAT = 'utf-8' self.DISCONNECT_MESSAGE = "!DISCONNECT" self.server = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) self.server.bind(self.ADDR) self.save_dict = {} def file_access(self) : with open("project_data\\savedata.dat","rb") as save_file : save_dict = pickle.load(save_file) return save_dict def file_dump(self) : with open("project_data\\savedata.dat","wb") as save_file : pickle.dump(self.save_dict,save_file) def recieve(self,conn) : msg_length = conn.recv(self.HEADER).decode(self.FORMAT) if msg_length: msg_length = int(msg_length) msg = conn.recv(msg_length).decode(self.FORMAT) return msg def handle_client(self,conn, addr): print(f"[NEW CONNECTION] {addr} connected.") connected = True while connected: try : self.save_dict = self.file_access() msg = self.recieve(conn) if msg == self.DISCONNECT_MESSAGE: connected = False elif msg == "Save Data" : player_id = conn.recv(5000) try : name,code = pickle.loads(player_id) except EOFError : pass if (name,code) not in self.save_dict : conn.send("Available".encode(self.FORMAT)) msg1 = self.recieve(conn) if msg1 == "Game Data" : game_data = conn.recv(5000) #msg = pickle.loads(msg_data) self.save_dict[(name,code)] = game_data print(self.save_dict) conn.send("Success".encode(self.FORMAT)) else : conn.send("Exists".encode(self.FORMAT)) msg1 = self.recieve(conn) if msg1 == "Game Data" : game_data = conn.recv(5000) self.save_dict[(name,code)] = game_data conn.send("Success".encode(self.FORMAT)) elif msg == "Wipe" : self.save_dict.pop((name,code)) print(f"new dict is ",self.save_dict) elif msg == "Load" : player_id = conn.recv(5000) try : name,code = pickle.loads(player_id) except EOFError : pass if (name,code) in self.save_dict : conn.send("Present".encode(self.FORMAT)) conn.send(self.save_dict[(name,code)]) else : conn.send("Absent".encode(self.FORMAT)) elif msg == "Check Data" : player_id = conn.recv(5000) try : name,code = pickle.loads(player_id) except EOFError : pass if (name,code) in self.save_dict : conn.send("Exists".encode(self.FORMAT)) else : conn.send("New".encode(self.FORMAT)) self.file_dump() except ConnectionResetError : connected = False conn.close() print(f"[Terminated] connection terminated for {addr}") def start(self): self.server.listen() print(f"[LISTENING] Server is listening on {self.SERVER}") while True: conn, addr = self.server.accept() thread = threading.Thread(target=self.handle_client, args=(conn, addr)) thread.start() print(f"[ACTIVE CONNECTIONS] {threading.activeCount() - 1}") print("[STARTING] server is starting...") server = Server() server.start()  Ive used the socket package to run a server on my local network.

Answer: METHOD 1 A possible solution for this would be to encrypt your code. There are several ways of encrypting your code. But the easiest one is to use base64 or basically converting text-to-binary encoding. and you need to make sure that there is no special character because base64 only have this charachter set. You can check here the base64 table https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64 import base64 your_code = base64.b64encode(b""" # All your code goes in here. import socket import threading import pickle class Server : def __init__(self) : self.HEADER = 64 self.PORT = 5050 self.SERVER = socket.gethostbyname(socket.gethostname()) self.ADDR = (self.SERVER, self.PORT) self.FORMAT = 'utf-8' self.DISCONNECT_MESSAGE = "!DISCONNECT" # Continue your code... """) exec(base64.b64decode(your_code))  This technique is used for hacking and other malicious purposes to avoid anti-virus software detecting it as a malware. This might work for you. Try recompiling it. Let us know if it works. METHOD 2 If the above method doesn't work, try out this method. This method uses fernet cryptography. This means that the code is more tightly encrypted makes it even difficult for the anti-virus software to recognize this as a malware than the first method. For this, you need a python module called cryptography https://pypi.org/project/cryptography/ from cryptography.fernet import Fernet import base64 code = b""" import socket import threading import pickle class Server : def __init__(self) : self.HEADER = 64 self.PORT = 5050 self.SERVER = socket.gethostbyname(socket.gethostname()) self.ADDR = (self.SERVER, self.PORT) self.FORMAT = 'utf-8' self.DISCONNECT_MESSAGE = "!DISCONNECT" self.server = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) self.server.bind(self.ADDR) self.save_dict = {} def file_access(self) : with open("project_data\\savedata.dat","rb") as save_file : save_dict = pickle.load(save_file) return save_dict def file_dump(self) : with open("project_data\\savedata.dat","wb") as save_file : pickle.dump(self.save_dict,save_file) def recieve(self,conn) : msg_length = conn.recv(self.HEADER).decode(self.FORMAT) if msg_length: msg_length = int(msg_length) msg = conn.recv(msg_length).decode(self.FORMAT) return msg def handle_client(self,conn, addr): print(f"[NEW CONNECTION] {addr} connected.") connected = True while connected: try : self.save_dict = self.file_access() msg = self.recieve(conn) if msg == self.DISCONNECT_MESSAGE: connected = False elif msg == "Save Data" : player_id = conn.recv(5000) try : name,code = pickle.loads(player_id) except EOFError : pass if (name,code) not in self.save_dict : conn.send("Available".encode(self.FORMAT)) msg1 = self.recieve(conn) if msg1 == "Game Data" : game_data = conn.recv(5000) #msg = pickle.loads(msg_data) self.save_dict[(name,code)] = game_data print(self.save_dict) conn.send("Success".encode(self.FORMAT)) else : conn.send("Exists".encode(self.FORMAT)) msg1 = self.recieve(conn) if msg1 == "Game Data" : game_data = conn.recv(5000) self.save_dict[(name,code)] = game_data conn.send("Success".encode(self.FORMAT)) elif msg == "Wipe" : self.save_dict.pop((name,code)) print(f"new dict is ",self.save_dict) elif msg == "Load" : player_id = conn.recv(5000) try : name,code = pickle.loads(player_id) except EOFError : pass if (name,code) in self.save_dict : conn.send("Present".encode(self.FORMAT)) conn.send(self.save_dict[(name,code)]) else : conn.send("Absent".encode(self.FORMAT)) elif msg == "Check Data" : player_id = conn.recv(5000) try : name,code = pickle.loads(player_id) except EOFError : pass if (name,code) in self.save_dict : conn.send("Exists".encode(self.FORMAT)) else : conn.send("New".encode(self.FORMAT)) self.file_dump() except ConnectionResetError : connected = False conn.close() print(f"[Terminated] connection terminated for {addr}") def start(self): self.server.listen() print(f"[LISTENING] Server is listening on {self.SERVER}") while True: conn, addr = self.server.accept() thread = threading.Thread(target=self.handle_client, args=(conn, addr)) thread.start() print(f"[ACTIVE CONNECTIONS] {threading.activeCount() - 1}") print("[STARTING] server is starting...") server = Server() server.start() """ key = Fernet.generate_key() encryption_type = Fernet(key) encrypted_message = encryption_type.encrypt(code) decrypted_message = encryption_type.decrypt(encrypted_message) exec(decrypted_message)  This time the compiled exe was uploaded to https://www.virustotal.com/gui/ and the results were better METHOD 3 - Use another method to freeze your code There are many methods to convert your code to an exe. Another most popular way to freeze your code is to use py2exe. Install the module from the pypi website.  Create a new python file called setup.py in the same directory as your main code file. Then paste following in your setup.py file.  from distutils.core import setup import py2exe setup(console=['main.py'])   Open cmd and type python setup.py py2exe  After a while, a folder named dist will be created. It will contain all dependencies for your exe.  Now you can compress this file by zipping it and send it to another person. Another possible solution is to use a compiler like InnoSetup to compile all your exe and the dependencies into a single msi file.