On Apr 26, 1:12 pm, "BillW50" <Bill...@aol.kom> wrote:
> Funny that those who keeps up security updates got burned with
> unbootable computer with the Wednesday's McAfee update. In this case,
> anybody who has XP SP3 installed. Nice, eh?
>
> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9175940/McAfee_apologizes_for_...
>
> --
> Bill
> Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3
MORE HERE:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8636985.stm
Security update hits Windows PCs
Windows uses lots of copies of the svchost file
Thousands of PCs around the world have been paralysed by a security
update that wrongly labelled part of Windows as a virus.
The update was sent out by security firm McAfee and made affected PCs
endlessly restart.
Corporate customers of McAfee seemed to be hardest hit but some
individuals reported problems too.
McAfee apologised for the mistake and released a fix to ensure PCs
started working again.
Thousands hit [i would opine millions - CJB]
The problems were caused by an update to the long list McAfee's anti-
virus uses to identify which programs are malicious.
McAfee's 5958 update wrongly identified the Windows svchost.exe file
as the wecorl.a virus. This worm tries to replace an existing svchost
file with its own version to help it take over a machine.
The update wrongly labelled svchost as the virus and then quarantined
it. This caused many PCs to crash as Windows uses many copies of the
file to keep the operating system going.
Computers inside businesses running Windows XP with service pack 3
applied were the hardest hit according to reports. The University of
Michigan said 8,000 of its 25,000 computers were hit by the faulty
update.
The SANS Internet Storm Center said the update was causing "widespread
problems" and said it received reports about "networks with thousands
of down machines and organizations who had to shut down for business
until this is fixed."
Analyst Rob Enderle said the update "pretty much took Intel down
today". Mr Enderle was at the chip giant's HQ for a meeting when the
widespread crash started to hit the computers of the people with whom
he sat.
"We believe that this incident has impacted less than one half of one
percent of our enterprise accounts globally," said a statement from
McAfee, adding that an even smaller percentage of its consumer
customers were hit.
It said it removed the update "within hours" and released an updated
file free of the mistake. It also issued a "sincere apology" for the
inconvenience caused.