McAfee antivirus program goes berserk, reboots PCs

[Mousey]

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By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – 24 mins ago
NEW YORK – Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves Wednesday after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.

Antivirus vendor McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update posted at 9 a.m. Eastern time caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.

"We are not aware of significant impact on consumers and believe we have effectively limited such occurrence," the company said in a statement.

Online posters begged to differ, saying thousands of computers ...

 

[jetset]

It would have been nice to see an abject apology and a little more humility from these folks in view of the chaos this must have caused.

I've recently ditched both resources-hogging and user-unfriendly Norton and McAfee in favour of Kaspersky, which seems to do as competent a job with less downside.

 

[RobWin]

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By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – 24 mins ago
NEW YORK – Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves Wednesday after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.

Antivirus vendor McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update posted at 9 a.m. Eastern time caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.

"We are not aware of significant impact on consumers and believe we have effectively limited such occurrence," the company said in a statement.

Online posters begged to differ, saying thousands of computers ...

Anyone that still uses McAfee is simply living in the dark ages of computer technology. I'm actually surprised that these guys are even still in business.

There are many other AV programs on the market for some time now that blow McAfee away by light years.

Why anyone would still use and even pay for McAfee just boggles the mind!
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[kakata]

Ive always used AVG free edition...never had any problem whatsoever.....
although It was never able to get rid of one single bug..................my wife

 

[Mousey]

well .... isn't this going to be fun.... not!

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10:01 AMYahoo!



News reports and Twitter chatter suggest thousands of Windows PCs in large organizations around the globe were thrown into fits of rebooting yesterday after antivirus giant McAfee distributed a routine update carrying an egregious error.


Now each one of those computers will have to be manually cleaned. Affected organizations can expect to expend a minimum of 30 minutes of manual labor per PC ...

 

[dominique]

I use it, and it happened to me a couple days ago.

It rebooted twice and also messed up a windows app I use before I got alert about it and I just went and reset the machine to the day before. Case closed - didn't happen again.

Been using macafee for many years without issue. I also use macafee secure on my website and have found it very useful in preventing hacking - it tries to hack in every day using all the current methods and informs me of any vulnerabilities in any apps or programs or server I use...

So I have been happy with it. And I am online some 14 hours a day, 7 days a week...

 

[RobWin]

well .... isn't this going to be fun.... not!

Like I said.....
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[maxd]

Anyone that still uses McAfee is simply living in the dark ages ....

I have to second Rob's rather pointed observation. A decade ago they were hot stuff but McAfecal has been the dog's doo for years, usually reported as such in the typical 'Round Up' reviews that the major sites and mags do each year or bi-annually.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I bought a year of McAfee with this new PC, but didn't bother renewing it. I installed AVG free, BUT it recently let something VERY nasty through, malware called "Security Tool" that was clever enough to block AVG from running. I had to get rid if it manually using a guide I looked at using my old Windows 98 PC (yes, it is STILL working, but the monitor is showing worrying signs of failure).

My ISP provides a free total security package, recently improved from the earlier version. I will try this next to see how it compares with AVG.

The biggest problem may be false positives with casino software, and blocking casino clients from accessing their servers.

 

[maxd]

FYI VWM, that 'security tool' thing defeated pretty much every AV package out there for a variety of reasons I won't go into but the bottom line is that they were all caught with their drawers down on that one. Not that I'm defending McA or anything, just letting you know.

 

[vinylweatherman]

FYI VWM, that 'security tool' thing defeated pretty much every AV package out there for a variety of reasons I won't go into but the bottom line is that they were all caught with their drawers down on that one. Not that I'm defending McA or anything, just letting you know.

Were any packages smart enough NOT to get caught napping?

I am still puzzled as to how it got in, but I have theories.

The worry is that this method of infection will be tried again, and might again defeat many AV packages. Knowing how it did it would help understand how it might be stopped.

 

[maxd]

Ok, I don't know the deep guts of this particular thing because I'm not into that stuff (anymore) but the primary reason it got past all of the major players is that someone had to click on the "Scan" button for it to kick off. I know, I did it. Once that happened it was too late, damage done.

The fact that none of the industrial strength AV packages caught it is a bit surprising but in my experience -- 2½ decades of DIY PCs -- it just means they'll move ASAP to make sure it doesn't happen again.

There's good reason to trust the big guns in the AV world -- mainly Kaspersky, ESET and AVG if you ask me -- because they don't get snookered very often. It happens once in a while but not often and not for long.

 

[RobWin]

Ok, I don't know the deep guts of this particular thing because I'm not into that stuff (anymore) but the primary reason it got past all of the major players is that someone had to click on the "Scan" button for it to kick off. I know, I did it. Once that happened it was too late, damage done.

The fact that none of the industrial strength AV packages caught it is a bit surprising but in my experience -- 2½ decades of DIY PCs -- it just means they'll move ASAP to make sure it doesn't happen again.

There's good reason to trust the big guns in the AV world -- mainly Kaspersky, ESET and AVG if you ask me -- because they don't get snookered very often. It happens once in a while but not often and not for long.

Absolutely! The three best IMO too...
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