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Sophos Anti-Virus Update Identifies Sophos Code As Malware

Posted by timothy on from the auto-immune-disease dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday afternoon anti-virus company Sophos Inc. released a normal anti-virus definition update that managed to detect parts of their own software as malicious code and disabled / deleted sections of their Endpoint security suite, including its ability to auto-update and thus repair itself. For many hours on the 19th, Sophos technical call centers were so busy customers were unable to even get through to wait on hold for assistance. Today thousands of enterprise customers remain crippled and unable to update their security software." Sophos points out that not everyone will be affected: "Please note this issue only affects Windows computers."

4 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. There needs to be an award for this by phrackwulf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Every year, we need to go down the list of software makers who have managed to totally Bork their users. The Meltdown awards. Just to distinguish between the companies that handle it well and the companies that are incompetent.

    --
    What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
  2. Malware makers take note! by erroneus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wanna cause problems? Add code from the various AV vendors...

  3. Here's more than AVIRA... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    McAfee:

    http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/04/21/1735211

    Symantec/Norton:

    http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9019958

    ODDLY ENOUGH?

    SOPHOS (vs. Google Analytics)

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22Sophos%22+and+%22Google+Analytics%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1

    APK

    P.S.=> And I can & DID point out a LOT MORE, & it's happened to myself in wares I wrote, and those of VERY NOTABLE FOLKS in this industry (Nir Sofer of Nirsoft, as well as Dr. Mark Russinovich of Microsoft -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3132237&cid=41401485 which some dork downmodded & ran... )

    ... apk

  4. Windows AV programs are malware by dskoll · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just think about it. The average Windows AV program runs with sufficient privilege to wreck your system by altering or removing arbitrary files. And it gets fed multiple updates per day created by teams of workers working in a hugely stressful situation: When a new virus appears, you've got to get those signatures out NOW.

    I'm amazed people don't see this risks in this.