A bug in patch 1 for McAfee VirusScan Enterprise v8.7i caused serious problems according to several user reports. On updated PCs, the scanner “discovered” a worm (W32/Generic.worm.aa) in several Windows XP and Vista system files and deleted or moved them. The result was that the PCs hung up or booted repeatedly when restarted.
In order to avoid further damage, McAfee initially removed the patch from its service portal and download pages. Users who had already installed patch 1 in their environments, but haven’t noticed any problem yet are being advised by McAfee not to uninstall it. The DAT files that McAfee has been distributing since the 7th of June are promised to prevent the false alarm and so eliminate the problems.
Customers that have already encountered problems are advised to contact McAfee support. McAfee says the error only affected a small number of business clients, but several disgruntled administrators are discussing the subject in the McAfee forums.
The number of false alarms from virus scanners has strongly increased in the recent past. In February, Bitdefender and G DATA crippled many Windows systems by incorrectly identifying Winlogon.exe as a trojan and deleting it. Bitdefender and G Data, however, are not the only programs now finding false positives.
Bug in McAfee patch
11 Responses
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June 13th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
So glad I happened upon your blog here. I have learned so much already.
June 14th, 2009 at 4:05 am
I was not aware of this before I read about it here. So glad people are working together to solve this problem.
June 14th, 2009 at 4:38 am
I know, it’s unbelievable, isn’t it? Where will it end?
June 15th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I am so ignorant on this topic but now I know a little more. Thanks for educating me.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Sad, isn’t it. But what can you expect in this situation?
June 16th, 2009 at 3:12 am
you savved me from updating it
i need more this kind of info
June 16th, 2009 at 3:13 am
time is bad
situtation is bad
softwares are bad
piracy is good
y arent the careful abt this in pretime and let users get saved by this kind of disasters
June 17th, 2009 at 3:08 am
I had no idea. Amazing what you can learn by cruising the internet, reading about things that interest you. Thanks for posting about this.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:47 am
This is a very interesting website. I wish I had found it earlier. This information will definitely come in handy.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:17 am
This blog has very good information. I learned a lot from reading here.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:47 am
As a total novice to this topic, I find this information most enlightening and helpful.