Reading a binary file or dat file in /var/log, its identity changes

Did a search here and have found nothing that directly applies.....soooooooo

How does one read a non system generated binary file or .dat file from /var/log.....specifically the files I would like to read are generated by Eset AV. It gets even more interesting in this way...... I attempted to view the files with System Log viewer (gnome-system-log-pkexec) run as root. When I opened the window to open other files, these same files had the suffix .dat....... where looking at the different files under Nautilus, they had under file type, binary. System log would not open them.

I ve been having some interesting problems with Eset recently, among them the fact that it took down the entire system earlier when attempting to launch a support request from within the program to address errors in the log file when attempting scheduled updates. It is the paid version and yes I run AV on Linux. Its Eset NOD 32 for Linux version 4.0.81.0 for anyone curious. I just would like an idea of why the AV program took the system down to the point where I couldnt get to a CLI from the keyboard and had to do a hardware reset. So for that I need to see the log files and well..... apparently I am too stupid to figure it out and...yeah systemd I know (lets not go there LOL)

Thanks
Expat