Symantec Updates Cause Chaos in China

Hello Kitty writes "According to Computerworld, a signature update to Symantec's anti-virus software has knocked out thousands of Chinese PCs. Apparently the latest update for the AV component of the various Norton packages mistook two system files in the Chinese edition of Windows XP SP2 for the 'Backdoor.Haxdoor' trojan. Piracy issues may complicate recovery, since once the updates are installed Symantec says the only hope for reviving an affected system is to re-copy the affected DLLs from the Windows restore disks. Everyone has their official restore disks handy, right?"

Comments

Re:no sympathy

[Zo0ok]

So, you have no sympathy for paying customers because many other people in the same country presumably did not pay? I think there are about 1300 million Chineese - you should allow yourself not to judge them all together.

How Long

[TheUni]

...until some jackass posts a link to the files netapi32.dll and lsasrv.dll under the guise of a fix for these systems, but he has ACTUALLY infected with the backdoor.haxdoor virus?

Re:no sympathy

[Kjella]

That makes about as much sense as saying they should nuke all Windows installations because world-wide there's many more pirated ones. And how is that exactly going to do anything:

1. "Damn, my pirated copy stopped working"
    "You should have bought a real copy"
    "Would that have helped?"
    "No."
2. ???
3. Piracy problem solved

Hypocrisy

[Romwell]

I guess this thread is going to become full of posts in the spirit of "they got what they deserved", as if this was an anti-piracy measure. Of course, piracy of IP is only legitimate when commited within USA, otherwise it is "OMG commies are stealig our moneyz". This was an effing software bug, which casued trouble to everyone, legitimate users too, and I don't see how piracy talk could be relevant. As a side note, having recovery CD's does not have to do anything with piracy. If you pirate Windows, you have all the CD's you need.

Re:no sympathy

[jalet]

> I've got no sympathy for the Chinese.

Expressing as much stupidity in only 8 words certainly is a world record.

What next ? You've got no sympathy for blacks, blonds, left-handed or bue-eyed people ?

Racism at its best !

Woe is Symantec

[rueger]

For years I always installed Symantec products, and before them Central Point and Norton products.

They worked, they worked well, and I could see how they helped me.

Somewhere along the line though they became first large, then irritating, then expensive to keep updated (pay for virus signature updates?), then finally began actually damaging systems.

And somewhere along the line I stopped buying their products, installing their products, and recommending their products.

I've come to view Microsoft the same way. Between excessive DRM, excessive hardware demands, and a generally customer hostile attitude I find it hard to think that I would ever move to a Vista machine. Thus far Windows 2000 still does everything that I need with a lot less hassle.

Someday though I will need to upgrade. The question is what will fill the gap? Linux still isn't there, nor are most Open Source replacements for common Microsoft and Adobe applications.

Is there a company that can step in with a viable replacement for Photoshop or MS Office? Can OpenOffice or GIMP make the final leap to become a reasonable and reliable alternative to those tools? I don't want something that sort of does everything that Photoshop does, I want a professional tool that does everything, and does it equally well.

The door is open, we're just waiting someone to step through.

Re:Woe is Symantec

[whoever57]

And somewhere along the line I stopped buying their products, installing their products, and recommending their products.

I went through the same process, although I now recommend Linux when appropriate. The experience that turned me off Symantec was installing a new version that required activation, but would not activate. Support was hopeless -- asking the same question over and over ("do you have a firewall?"). Why the vendor of a security product should suggest that I turn off my firewall to activate their product, I just don't know -- anyway, I could see the queries in my squid logs.

Since then, I've seen machines crippled by malfunctioning Symantec rootkits. Yes -- I refer to them as rootkits since they have made un-installation impossible in some cases. For example, their uninstall program refuses to run in safe mode.