Microsoft's Antivirus Briefly Flags Google.com As Malicious

tsu doh nimh writes "Computers running Microsoft's antivirus and security software may be flagging google.com — the world's most-visited Web site — as malicious, apparently due to a faulty Valentine's Day security update shipped by Microsoft. For several hours on Tuesday, PC users browsing with Internet Explorer on a machine equipped with Microsoft Security Essentials or Forefront saw warnings that Google.com was serving up a 'severe' threat – Exploit:JS/Blacole.BW — basically that google.com was supposedly infected with a Blackhole exploit kit. The warning prompted users to 'delete' the threat, although accepting the default action appeared to cause no ill result. The episode is more embarrassing than harmful, given that Microsoft is expected to ship antivirus technology with the next version of Windows."

Comments

These things can happen

[MrManny]

To be honest, I don't think this is really *that* big of a deal. This can happen. Worse has happened, not only at Microsoft but by other AV products as well. I recall Avast crying out loud over Steam less than a month ago, moving its service into containment. And if I recall correctly, Avast even flagged notepad.exe as a virus once. I specifically mention Avast, because a.) I use it, and b.) it actually scored rather well last time I bothered to look it up in comparative studies.

As long as there are probabilities involved, false positives and false negatives are bound to happen. When it comes to AV, I don't mind if it errs on the side of caution as long as it doesn't happen too often.

Mod me down or call me fanboy as much as you want, but I really don't consider this too problematic, regardless of Microsoft being the "aggressor" here.

Re:first!

[hairyfeet]

What bloatware would that be? The firewall in Vista/7 that has pretty damned comprehensive rules based filtering while being easy to use, THAT bloatware? or are you still bitching about a certain 12 year old OS that is going for a record on years of support even though they've passed any legal obligation they had to keep updating the thing, could it be that? Give me a damned break! What's next, you gonna complain that XP which is already 3 generations behind (XP X64, Vista, 7) runs as admin too? Move on dude. Man the world is gonna be full of butthurt nerds when 2014 gets here and XP doesn't get another extension so they will actually have to try to find things in the modern version to bitch about. But don't worry Ballmer is gonna shoot Windows in the face because he wants to be Apple so fucking bad he sleeps with an iPad under his pillow.

As for TFA frankly if that is the WORST thing an AV does color me happy. We've seen dllhost marked as a bug thus disabling the system, we've seen core boot files flagged as bugs thus bricking the system unless you had a second machine to Google how to fix the first, frankly MSE has been so far pretty harmless. That said even though I use it on my netbook and gamer machines I do NOT use it on the machine I actually do any real surfing on because frankly in my tests it doesn't really DO anything. What I mean by that is while it has a pretty decent scanner for downloaded files that is pretty much it, you load up a webpage with malicious code MSE isn't gonna say a word or try to block that site whereas both Comodo Internet Security and Avast Free stop the page from loading. I will give them credit for being just about the lowest resource using on any AV but the flipside is it simply isn't doing much. So while I recommend it for geeks that actually practice safe computing or for machines like my gamer PC and netbook where the only surfing they are doing is checking webmail or going to well vetted sites like this for regular users I simply can't give it out.

Maybe its because it was never really intended to be an AV, it was originally Giant Antispy before being purchased by MSFT, maybe the guys at MSFT got tired of AVs slowing down the system so focused on speed above all, who knows, but for a clean computer in my own tests which involved taking an offlease and hitting every topsite and crapsite I could find then using a disc filled with offline scanners to check the system I found MSE on XP scored horribly, MSE on Vista/7 did better simply because OS protections like low rights mode did most of the work, but in no version of Windows did it stop as much as Comodo IS or Avast Free. Oh and since you seem to hate the firewall so much Comodo IS is not only free for home AND business use but also has its own quite excellent firewall built in, which for those that just want one or the other its as simple as unchecking a box during install. For business users or those that want more finer grained controls I'd go with Comodo IS, for those that want a drop and go solution Avast Free is what you want. MSE? Meh only use it if resources are the highest concern, like say on an underclocked netbook (for those that haven't tried Brazos Tweaker it does rock and added an extra hour on my E350's battery) or a gamer system where you simply aren't doing any risky behavior.