 |
Power Sellers Unite
Bringing Buyers and Sellers Together
|
| :: |
| Author |
Message |
elgato
Joined: 24 Feb 2005
Posts: 16923
Location: Texas
|
| Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:24 pm Post subject: Recovering from the Flawed McAfee Update |
|
|
Nothing ruins an IT administrator's day faster than a software update from a security vendor wreaking havoc on the computer systems it is intended to protect. That is exactly the predicament faced by many IT administrators today when a flawed McAfee update rendered Windows XP PC's essentially useless.
Joris Evers, a McAfee spokesperson, e-mailed a statement explaining "In the past 24 hours, McAfee identified a new threat that impacts Windows PCs. Researchers worked diligently to address this threat that attacks critical Windows system executables and buries itself deep into a computer's memory."
Evers continued "The research team created detection and removal to address this threat. The remediation passed our quality testing and was released with the 5958 virus definition file at 2:00 PM GMT+1 (6am Pacific Time) on Wednesday, April 21."
Not long after that, reports began to surface that Windows PC's--primarily Windows XP SP3 PC's--were experiencing significant issues, including constant rebooting or the ever-popular BSOD (blue screen of death) system crash.
more.. link to news article |
|
| Back to top |
|
elgato
Joined: 24 Feb 2005
Posts: 16923
Location: Texas
|
| Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 11:21 am Post subject: Re: Recovering from the Flawed McAfee Update |
|
|
Related update:
"McAfee admits "inadequate" quality control caused PC meltdown"
Update 23-Apr: Late Thursday night, McAfee posted a FAQ on this issue at their web site. The FAQ includes some of the text from the confidential document I received yesterday and is clearly a later version of that document. However, the details of why the problem occurred and the specific steps that the company plans to take to avoid similar problems in the future have been replaced with general statements. I have highlighted the differences in updates below.
As of 6AM Pacific time on 23-Apr, there is still no statement, apology, or clearly labeled link to support resources related to this issue on McAfee’s home page.
If your company uses enterprise security products from McAfee, you probably had a bad day yesterday. If you’re an IT professional at one of those companies, you’re probably still cleaning up the mess caused by a defective virus signature update that disabled systems running Windows XP with the most recent service pack (SP3). The worst part? According to a confidential document from McAfee, the cause was a fundamental breakdown in the most basic of quality-assurance processes.
From an IT perspective, this is a nightmare scenario: an automatic update that wipes out a crucial system file and that can only be repaired manually. I’ve heard from more than a dozen IT pros and consultants over the past 24 hours who shared their experiences. They are, to put it mildly, unhappy.
What went wrong?
more.. link to news article |
|
| Back to top |
|
elpereles
Joined: 15 Dec 2006
Posts: 1398
Location: Puerto Rico
|
| Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 1:37 am Post subject: Re: Recovering from the Flawed McAfee Update |
|
|
My 1rst laptop (dead and its rest were in eBay) used McAfee from fabric. When that license expired I get the new version for that moment. Then after that license ended I discover the free antivirus.
For McAfee was clear that they don't test very well their updates. This big problem remember me what happen last year with AVG version 8. It erases something in XP OS then you get a blue screen or restart loop. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
|  |