Intellectual Property Law

McAfee Probing Bungle That Sparked Global PC Crash

By David Kravets

McAfee said Thursday it was trying to determine how it bungled a security update that crashed perhaps tens of thousands of PCs across the globe.

Computers from Australia and Kentucky to the United Kingdom began freezing up late Wednesday after the Santa Clara, California, security firm released an updated definition file for its corporate antivirus software. The update mistakenly identified a critical Windows file — svchost.exe — as a worm and quarantined it, crashing computers running Windows XP Service Pack 3.

While the update has been removed, McAfee said it was “investigating how the incorrect detection made it into our DAT files and will take measures to prevent this from reoccurring.” Scammers began seizing on the debacle, marketing fake antivirus services.

McAfee’s snafu was the second black eye for the company in as many weeks. McAfee, a household name for computer virus-protection, on April 8 was hit with accusations it dupes online customers into purchasing third-party services, and hands over consumer banking information to enable those transactions.

Researchers said Thursday that affected computers had to be manually corrected one by one, a process that could take 30 minutes per machine.

On Thursday, Coles, an Australian supermarket chain, said 1,100 checkout terminals crashed because of the McAfee update, so it temporarily closed several stores in that country. An Intel spokesman in California acknowledged the problem at its headquarters was “significant.” Kentucky State Police lost use of their their entire IT infrastructure, and hospitals in Rhode Island postponed elective surgeries.

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our customers,” McAfee said Thursday,  declining to say how many computers it believed were affected.

Photo: Associated Press

See Also:

• Lawsuit Says McAfee Plays Loose With Customer Data
• Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show
• ‘Google’ Hackers Had Ability to Alter Source Code
• McAfee Threats Report: Second Quarter 2009
• McAfee Warns Spam, Trojans and Botnets Skyrocketing
• Viral Video Hoax, or Proof of Impending Cyber Apocalypse?
• Former McAfee CEO Takes on P2P

Full post as published by Threat Level on April 22, 2010 (boomark / email).