• McAfee Anti-virus Software Flawed

    McAfee Anti-virus Software Flawed

    Techtree News Staff, Mar 14, 2006 1328 hrs IST

    Last week, McAfee acknowledged that its anti-virus software had mistakenly flagged hundreds of legitimate programs as...

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Late last week, anti-virus vendor McAfee acknowledged that its anti-virus software had mistakenly flagged hundreds of legitimate third-party programs as malware, prompting some customers to delete or quarantine these programs.

The error lay in McAfee's daily virus definition file called DAT, causing genuine files to be identified as W95/CTX - a virus first discovered in 2004.

Affected McAfee software included all editions of its on-demand scanning products such as VirusScan - both consumer and enterprise versions of it.

The files that were dubbed malicious were Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet, Adobe's Flash, Google's Toolbar installer, parts of Sun Microsystems' Java Runtime Environment and several Adaptec drivers.

McAfee posted a list of over 330 affected files, however the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center found even this list incomplete.

Basis how VirusScan was configured by users, the legitimate files were either deleted or quarantined to a special folder. In both cases, applications were rendered inoperative.

Although McAfee pushed out a corrected DAT post discovering the problem, a large part of the damage had already been done.

Also downloading and installing the corrected DAT helped restore only quarantined files, not the deleted files.

McAfee even posted recommendations on its Web site, asking users to go to a backup or to use Windows XP's System Restore feature to roll back their machines to a point before the flawed DAT.

All said and done, analysts say that batches of so-called "false postives" like the latest McAfee round are quite common among anti-virus vendors.

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Late last week McAfee acknowledged anti-virus software mistakenly flagged hundreds of legitimate programs as malware



Discussion Board
(22) Comments
ramdayal
,Jaipur, on Jan 17, 2007 02:24 PM
I completely trust McAfee. This comes as a surprise
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Sheliah Wurth
,Hickory, on May 25, 2006 11:42 PM
Running McAfee with Orchestrator. This software does great. Had no problems and orchestrator downloads for the entire company.
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michschu1
,Chennai, on Mar 20, 2006 04:07 PM
Well, well, well... if this too aint proper, what is??? Well looks like if someone goes by reviews and takes Bitdefender from herman street which gives Spysweeper free would be the best option because both are rated #1 for 2006 for antivirus and antispyware respectively that too for $24.95 on this particular page http://www.hermanstreet.com/store/smarthtml/bitdefender-radio.html... though I wonder why only Spysweeper (download) is put in the second part meaning that it might not be the registered version or no cd, coz if it is I can go to any freedownloads site for that!!! Well whatever said and done as always seems like nothing is PERFECT!!! ok ok I'll be humble, including me : P
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Aynsley Watson
,Edinburgh, on Mar 16, 2006 09:33 PM
This has also buggered up a program called Protel, it deletes/quarantines 2 dll files.
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keeshan
,Bangalore, on Mar 16, 2006 06:22 PM
I am not sure how many user using Norton are aware, but there was a recent patch released that did cause some issues but not like this.. that affected only Liveupdate feature... It was mainly seen for users from North America....I have NAV and wasn't infected by this.
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Sam
,Mumbai, on Mar 16, 2006 06:18 PM
Anyone tried Avast before?. It has a got a breat db. Plus its free.
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priyoban
,Kolkata, on Mar 16, 2006 01:37 PM
Totally agree with dquixter Nod32 is definitely the best av. out there. McAfee and Norton but massive bloatwares. Nod32 apart from having the best detection rates, is also the lightest on system resources.
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Gangadhar G. Ba
,Mumbai, on Mar 16, 2006 06:03 AM
I still maintain that Quickheal, an antivirus software developed by an Indian from Pune is far far better than any Phoren A/V softwares. It started sending daily updates even before McAfee did it. Besides you pay Rs. 2000 for a single subscription for three years and addtional Rs. 800 for every additional subscription for three years. Let us start believing Hum bhi Kuchch kam Nahi.
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Frank
,Mumbai, on Mar 15, 2006 10:14 AM
I have had a very good experience with McAfee VirusScan for the past 2 years and still maintain that it is by far the best anti-virus. I have tried every major anti-virus (Norton/ PcCillin/ ZoneAlarm), and this is the only one which stood out.
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rahul
,delhi, on Mar 15, 2006 11:42 AM
yep, McAfee is a gr8 antivirus
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King
,Delhi, on Mar 15, 2006 03:30 PM
I agree. I completely trust McAfee. This comes as a surprise, but is not enough for me to make a shift.
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dquixter
,Adelaide, South Australia, on Mar 15, 2006 09:45 PM
You have obviously never used Nod32 then. It is by far the BEST anti-virus program out there. In the tests it doesn't pick up false positives, is nearly the fastest, and more resource friendly. and for peoples information, I've seen more computers not working because of Norton Anti-virus, than ones without any anti-virus, so at least McAfee isn't too bad.
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michael durdan
,teesside, on Mar 15, 2006 03:18 PM
I had nothing but problems with this software, when I recieved the automatic updates, my computer would crash and after this nothing worked, even now 1 year on I still get annoying pop ups from this programme, even though I followed the manufacturers uninstall route, it came highly recommended from a uk leading computer store.
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JRD
,Bangalore, on Mar 15, 2006 12:45 PM
How many people fired from Mcafee for this error
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hell_fire
,hell, on Mar 15, 2006 10:40 AM
Mcafee always sucked..always will...AVast rules
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Nasser
,Ames, on Mar 15, 2006 12:44 AM
I had the same problem and finally had ro reinstall the windows xp as quite a few system files were either quarantined or deleted. I finally had to buy norton antivirus as windows reinstallation did not help as long as I had the McAfee.
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Kevin Dill
,Cedar Park, on Mar 14, 2006 10:31 PM
The gross expense of these problems chisel at effective productivity. If you go to a doctor to take a wart off of your finger, and they remove the hand, you would most likely sue. Some of these hands are small business that affects the overall health of this economy. Next we will see Microsoft roll out their virus protection for a price for protecting you against the exploitable areas of their other software. We will now have virus monitoring software to insure it does not damage what it is trying to protect. Kevin Dill http://ushightech.com
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Stuart Harvey
,Watertown, NY, on Mar 14, 2006 10:29 PM
I recently had a virus attack and used a downloaded McAfee program to rid me of hte 'critter'. However I did notice that some programs files such as 'my pictures' could not be transferred as desktop background. Nothing would happen when I clicked on the command. However I could go online and 'set as desktop' from there but just not in 'my pics'. Got any ideas of how to fix this?
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Anonymous
,Bird Island, on Mar 14, 2006 10:02 PM
would have been nice if they had owned up to the mistake with an email to all registered users
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Inan Elmerini
,Orlando, on Mar 14, 2006 07:32 PM
I knew it ! I have saved what I could in a separate hard disk with the error plaged files, drivers and directories. I reinstalled XP BUT DIDN'T format my disk and still working with a ackward system in my relatively neww laptop. Now what ?
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Vishal_Kadakia
,mumbai, on Mar 14, 2006 02:39 PM
woe, unbeliveable for mcafee...a product which had been consistent with itself and now landling in flawed waters si something hard to belive..but then u have 2 belive it...but then jus wondering which product is safe as symantec had ots rootkits issue and now its mcafee...
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Gary
,london, on Mar 14, 2006 02:01 PM
typical for mcafee
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