PLEASE NOTE: As of Thursday 6:30 PM, we have not had a single report of this problem within our customer base (400+ users). McAfee has taken action and is distributing a patch to correct any potential problems. As always, we recommend that you let McAfee automatically update your protection …
Posted: Thursday, April 22 2010 at 02:34 pm CT by Bob Sullivan
How can a software company, with one small mistake, cripple computers worldwide?
McAfee security users left the office on Tuesday night with a perfectly good Windows XP computer. On Wednesday morning, they were staring at a useless pile of plastic and computer chips. Without so much as the stroke of an enter key or the push of a mouse, their PCs had been changed. The error was simple: McAfee’s software erroneously decided that an essential file used by the Windows operating system was really an 18-month old Trojan horse. That sent many PCs into an infinite re-booting loop that couldn’t be stopped without skilled, manual intervention.
The root of the problem lies in a critical decision made a decade ago by security professionals. But the result — perhaps millions of PCs rendered useless, each one requiring manual repair — is just the latest sign that bad guys seem to be winning in cyberspace.