“McAfee antivirus update paralyses computers worldwide” plus 3 more |
- McAfee antivirus update paralyses computers worldwide
- Antivirus programs interfere with each other
- Antivirus Hell
- F-Secure: Windows needs PDF viewer to make it more secure
| McAfee antivirus update paralyses computers worldwide Posted: 03 May 2010 08:59 PM PDT Workplace computers across the world, including New Zealand, were shut down this morning because of a flawed antivirus update, according to Computerworld in the US. According to messages on the company's support forum, which has since gone offline, the problem lies with new signatures quarantining a crucial Windows system file McAfee spokesman Joris Evers confirmed the company had pushed the faulty update to users earlier today. "McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to incorrect malware alerts," Computerworld quotes Evers as saying. Affected computers display a shutdown error or blue error screen, then keep rebooting, users claimed. McAfee has since issued a fix and is warning users not to download today's update if they have not already. The glitch created problems at Rhode Island Hospital in the US, where emergency room patients without traumas has to be taken to other hospitals. * Have you been affected? Email news@tvnz.co.nz
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| Antivirus programs interfere with each other Posted: 02 May 2010 02:06 AM PDT Question: I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium. The Windows Security Center tells me that I have multiple issues on start up; it tells me that it does not locate antivirus software on the computer; it tells me that my PC-cillin program is out of date; Windows Defender does not automatically turn on upon start-up. I have to turn it on manually every time. I have installed AVG Free Edition 9.0 after the trial period of PC-cillin expired. How can I get Windows defender to recognize that we have AVG installed and not PC-cillin? How can we get Windows Defender to run on start-up? — Jobe, Rochester Answer: Just installing AVG doesn't automatically replace PC-cillin. So right now, they're both running, and disrupting each other. You need to actually uninstall PC-cillin. Windows Defender and AVG shouldn't really disrupt each other once PC-cillin is out of the way. Also, removing PC-cillin should let Windows Defender start; PC-cillin is likely blocking it, thinking it's a virus. Question: What is your opinion on using Microsoft Essentials for a virus protection? I have a Dell Inspiron 1420 with Win 7 Home Premium, 4 gig of RAM. I am using CA and it is very slow getting started. — Marie, Rochester Answer: Microsoft Security Essentials is a combination program that provides protection against viruses, spyware, adware, rootkits, worms and trojans for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit). Microsoft Security Essentials has a very well-organized user interface, it uses very few resources, and it is absolutely free. It replaces Windows Live OneCare, a commercial subscription-based antivirus service, and also the oft-maligned, but also free, Windows Defender, which only protected users from adware and spyware. Computer Associates' Internet Security Suite has always been an excellent product, but recently it's gotten bogged down in the amount of stuff it's trying to do all at once. Question: Can I use Security Tango for Windows 7? Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Posted: 02 May 2010 09:59 AM PDT Last Wednesday, April 21, Windows XP computers across campus started to crash and enter an endless reboot cycle. At first it seemed like someone had unwittingly let a virus into the network. By midday the problem had been isolated by the Information Technology Department at FSU - a faulty McAfee DAT file was causing the reboots. And the problem was worldwide. The DAT file was loaded as part of the regular virus definition update system that keeps the antivirus software current with new threats. The file caused the antivirus to scan svchost.exe and falsely identify it as W32/Wecorl.a. Svchost.exe is a critical Windows system file that encapsulates other processes. The system cannot operate without svchost.exe. When McAfee quarantined the system file Windows forced a restart, the rebooted computer would again sense the missing system file and the reboot cycle began to loop. The problem affected Windows XP with Service Pack 3, and primarily those systems running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise, which is a business version of McAfee's popular AV software. The software enables simultaneous updates across networks, meaning all the computers received and installed the DAT file at the same time. Anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours later, depending on the particular computer, the reboot cycle began. The update was released from McAfee at 9:00AM EST. The Tech Department had most of the affected FSU machines restored by the next morning - no small task. McAfee's public response to the faulty DAT issue was disheartening, especially considering the popularity of the XP SP3 combination for business users. McAfee delayed putting a link on its home page to information about the problem for more than a day. In a world where virus updates are often issued several times each hour, that delay is unacceptable. The company did indeed work to fix the problem quickly - by noon Wednesday there was a workaround patch available to download from the company. It required IT workers to update each terminal manually. Public statements by the company downplayed the number of affected users. Unfortunately, many of the users who were affected were very dependant on those machines. Byron Acohido reported in USA Today that network forensics firm Solera helped a "large U.S. multi-national company" determine that McAfee took down 50,000 of their XP machines. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| F-Secure: Windows needs PDF viewer to make it more secure Posted: 04 May 2010 03:31 AM PDT Microsoft should add a basic PDF viewer to Windows to help protect users from the spike in attacks exploiting bugs in Adobe's Reader, a security researcher said Friday. "Apple does this with its Preview [application], and Microsoft should, too," said Sean Sullivan, a security advisor with Finnish antivirus vendor F-Secure's North American operation. "I just want to view and read PDFs. I don't want to listen to them or watch them or launch executables from them or run JavaScript," Sullivan added, referring to several advanced features that Abobe's own PDF viewer, the for-free Reader, supports. Some of those features, including Reader's support of JavaScript and the PDF specification's support for the /Launch function, have been exploited by attackers in increasing numbers since 2008. According to tallies by antivirus vendor McAfee, PDF exploits were up more than eight times in 2009 compared to the year before, a trend that has continued into 2010. And the /Launch function, which allows PDF documents to run embedded executable files, is currently being exploited by attackers in a widespread malicious message campaign that tries to trick users into opening a rigged PDF. Sullivan spelled out his case in more detail in a post to the F-Secure security blog on Thursday. "Your customers are tired of the exploits and the complications that so many of today's PDF readers include," said Sullivan in a "Dear Microsoft" missive. "They should write a really simplified viewer, one that just previews PDF," Sullivan added Friday in a telephone interview. "They don't even need to build it into the operating system. They can make it an optional download like they did the 'Save As PDF' add-in for Office." Although Microsoft intended to add support for saving documents in the PDF file format to Office 2007, it was forced to backtrack when Adobe baulked. Instead, Microsoft built a "Save as PDF" add-on that it made available free of charge. After Adobe submitted the PDF/A specification to the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) in 2008, Microsoft added "Save As PDF" support to its suite with the release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) a year ago. The same feature is available in Office 2010. Office cannot open PDF documents without third-party software or add-ons, however. Windows 7 's and Windows Vista's preview feature also won't display PDFs. Instead, Microsoft has promoted, with little success, a substitute for PDF dubbed XPS (XML Paper Specification); an XPS viewer is bundled with Windows 7, for example. "The PDF specification has been completely royalty-free since 2006," said Sullivan, noting that Microsoft would not have to pay Adobe if it did craft a viewer of its own. "There's no reason why it can't create a native PDF viewer. It could even let users toggle it on and off, if it [were] worried about antitrust [issues]." Several times, Sullivan compared his vision of a Windows PDF viewer to Preview, the application that Apple includes with Mac OS X. But Preview is not bug free: In March, researcher Charlie Miller said he'd found more than 60 PDF files on the Web that could be used to crash and likely exploit Preview . Even so, Sullivan argued that Microsoft, or failing that, Adobe itself, should develop a stripped-down PDF viewer that omitted the functionality and features hackers have exploited. "I wish Adobe would create two different versions of Reader, one maybe 'Reader Lite' that's really just a viewer," he said. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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