McAfee Anti-Virus Causes Widespread File Damage

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McAfee Anti-Virus Causes Widespread File Damage

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday March 13, 2006 @02:02AM from the who-can-you-trust? dept.

AJ Mexico writes, "[Friday] McAfee released an anti-virus update that contained an anomaly in the DAT file that caused many important files to be deleted from affected systems. At my company, tens of thousands of files were deleted from dozens of servers and around 2000 user machines. Affected applications included MS Office, and products from IBM (Rational), GreenHills, MS Office, Ansys, Adobe, Autocad, Hyperion, Win MPM, MS Shared, MapInfo, Macromedia, MySQL, CA, Cold Fusion, ATI, FTP Voyager, Visual Studio, PTC, ADS, FEMAP, STAT, Rational.Apparently the DAT file targeted mostly, if not exclusively, DLLs and EXE files." An anonymous reader added, "Already, the SANS Internet Storm Center received a number of notes from distressed sysadmins reporting thousands of deleted or quarantined files. McAfee in response released advice to restore the files. Users who configured McAfee to delete files are left with using backups (we all got good backups... or?) or System restore."

10 of 353 comments (clear)

Help! by vjmurphy · 2006-03-13 02:04 · Score: 5, Funny

I need virus protection from my virus protection!

--
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
1. Re:Help! by spellraiser · 2006-03-13 02:12 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Okay - but after you get that, are you still safe?
  NO!
  You're going to need some virus protection from your virus protection from your virus protection to be absolutely safe.
  Thankfully, I am offering those at very reasonable prices. Buy one now and receive a free fragment from the Eiffel tower as a value-added gift.
  
  --
  I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Does this mean... by __aaclcg7560 · 2006-03-13 02:06 · Score: 4, Funny

That Microsoft Anti-Virus will be deleting McAfee from the system? And, to be on the safe side, also Norton?
Surprisingly, it didn't quarantine itself by digitaldc · 2006-03-13 02:09 · Score: 4, Funny

If only McAfee had quarantined itself before this disaster, it would have worked perfectly!

--
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Re:who-can-you-trust? by MustardMan · 2006-03-13 02:14 · Score: 4, Funny

Quiet you, we'll have no reasonable thoughts in THIS house!

Closed source is teh $at4n... go linux, w00t!
I haven't had any problems by myth24601 · 2006-03-13 02:35 · Score: 5, Funny

I use McAfee and My system is working fi

--
No matter where you go, there you are.
Re:The Risk by fuyu-no-neko · 2006-03-13 03:08 · Score: 4, Funny

I guess the Mac & 'nix freaks are right, Windows really is a virus.

But aren't viruses meant to be small and efficient? O.o

--
Don't take the above poster too seriously. He doesn't.
New school excuse by Spy+der+Mann · 2006-03-13 04:12 · Score: 4, Funny

My antivirus ate my homework :(
Re:Don't use anti-virus! by st1d · 2006-03-13 04:19 · Score: 3, Funny

What, were you out of batteries for your cattle prod? :)

--
Microsoft has just released their much anticipated hands-free cordless mouse. Warning, it may hurt a little at first.
I can imagine the meeting now... by Obi-w00t · 2006-03-13 05:35 · Score: 4, Funny

[Team Leader]: So Steve is new here so, Bob, why don't you show him a simple virus definition for one of these low-priority viruses?
[Bob]: Sure. This virus is low-threat but can masquarade as numerous file names so why don't you just look for a common pattern and write a REGEXP function?
[Steve]: Sure.
[Bob]: You know how to write regular expressions, right?
[Steve]: Yeah, sure, the one's with the asterisks.
[Bob]: Erm, yeah. I'll leave you to it. Just send it to the database so it can get filed in the next update.
[Steve]: OK, see you later.
*Looks around nervously. Briefly glances at long list of file names then timidly enters:*

*.EXE