Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves Wednesday after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.
McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update … caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.
McAfee could not say how many computers were affected, but judging by online postings, the number was at least in the thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands.
McAfee said it did not appear that consumer versions of its software caused similar problems. It is investigating how the error happened ''and will take measures'' to prevent it from recurring, the company said in a statement.
I used the McAfee consumer version until 2003. McAfee allowed the “blaster” worm to infect my PC in August, 2003.
That was the virus that placed a message on the computer screen (shown below) saying the computer would shut down in one minute. Sure enough, in 59 seconds the computer would shut down.
With 100 auctions listed for sale on eBay, I nearly panicked. I went to a computer store and asked about the problem. I was told they would fix it for $100 if I would bring the computer to the store.
That night on the 6 o’clock Denver KUSA-TV news they gave a string of numbers to key in that would stop the computer from shutting down. We were then able to download a patch from Microsoft to disable the worm.
It was an easy fix once we knew how to deal with it.
That was the only virus I ever had. I have never forgiven McAfee for allowing it to infect my computer. I have not used McAfee since.
The current McAfee problem is here.
A July 2007 McAfee problem is here.
A picture of my cave
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