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McAfee Anti-Virus Causes Widespread File Damage
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."
This is one of the major reasons I use open source software. Its hard to trust corporations who only tell you lies to preserve their public image.
He'd been drinking, and there was this bird...
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Suppose you were driving on an ice road - would you wear a seat belt? I wouldn't! I don't care how safe they say it is there is no way I'll wear a seat belt when driving on ice.
Similarly I am cautious enough that rather than waste my time with anti-virus software - which can only be retroactive - I simply avoid the hasle and use linux.
Computers are so cheap these days that pretty much anyone who uses windows to surf the net is IMHO pretty much an idjot. I routinely instruct the consultants and professionals I hire that they are not to put any of my files on a windows machine that is connected to the net. Of course - I know some ignore me - and I have had confidential technical drawings worth $1000's of bux published on the net! Its pretty bad when the people you hire figure they should charge the client and then give away the clients work... but like I said - a large percentage of people are totally clueless.
I just found the whole issue pretty funny! To be honest I don't even feel sorry for them. Maybe this will cause a few to wake up and smell the coffee eh?