[qwery]

It's not really about "normal" antivirus programs, but tools used by security researchers. It's well-known that more sophisticated malware often try to avoid scrutiny by not running, or masking their intended purpose if the environment looks "suspicious".

A paranoid online game like e.g. Test Drive Unlimited, might not launch because the OS says it's Windows Server 2008 (ask me how I know). A script in a Word document might not deliver its payload if there are no "recently opened documents".

The idea with this thing is to make the environment look suspicious by making it look like an environment where the malware is being deliberately executed in order to study its behaviour.