Avast Scan Finds Password Protected Items

My husband's laptop comes finds many, many password protected items which it says it cannot scan,whenever he scans with Avast. What are these items and why are they password protected? Is this a virus? Most of the items are image files.

Any help would be appreciated. TIA

 

Thanks, PeteC for the reply. The computer is not a Dell so I do not think it applies to me, but I will look around in the Avast board and see if I can find an answer. These files are not scanned because they are protected and this has been happening for a few months, prior to that time, never had this occur.

 

Don't know what flavor of Windows he has, but have you tried right clicking on Avast and choose Run as Administrator and see if that works?