Sophos Anti-Virus Update Identifies Sophos Code As Malware

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."

Comments

That's why I don't install AV software on my PC

[TheLink]

That's why I don't install AV software on my PC. I'm less likely to screw up than AV vendors are. Seriously. My own PCs have NEVER been infected by a virus. And yes I know how to check, and I know how to upload suspicious stuff to VirusTotal, and I know how to run browsers with different user accounts from my main account. Whereas the AV vendors make this sort of screw up every few years. So it's no point for me to slow down my computer with AV software. The sort of malware that would infect me would probably not be detected by their stuff anyway.

BUT I do install AV software on other people's PCs. Since they do screw up more often. Despite that my sister somehow still managed to get her PC infected, and the AV software (Avira) just wouldn't detect or clean it...

I don't put AV software on production servers either unless PHBs etc require it. In my experience if you do things right, AV software is more likely to cause you problems than a virus.

Re:99.999%

[Rasputin]

It's not uncommon. Companies run Sophos on Solaris or Linux servers to scan uploaded files before they're passed to the poor stupid Windows systems.