McAfee Anti-Virus Causes Widespread File Damage

Posted by Roblimo (http://roblimo.com/) on Monday March 13, @09:02AM
from the who-can-you-trust? dept.
http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicsecurity.gif (http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=172)
AJ Mexico writes, "[Friday] McAfee released an anti-virus update that contained an anomaly in the DAT file (http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/2802) that caused many important files to be deleted from affected systems. At my company, tens of thousands of files were deleted from dozens of servers and around 2000 user machines. Affected applications included MS Office, and products from IBM (Rational), GreenHills, MS Office, Ansys, Adobe, Autocad, Hyperion, Win MPM, MS Shared, MapInfo, Macromedia, MySQL, CA, Cold Fusion, ATI, FTP Voyager, Visual Studio, PTC, ADS, FEMAP, STAT, Rational.Apparently the DAT file targeted mostly, if not exclusively, DLLs and EXE files." An anonymous reader added, "Already, the SANS Internet Storm Center received a number of notes from distressed sysadmins (http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1184) reporting thousands of deleted or quarantined files. McAfee in response released advice to restore the files (http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_138884.htm). Users who configured McAfee to delete files are left with using backups (we all got good backups... or?) or System restore."


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This is why I stopped using McAfee eons ago. It just caused problems. Haven't had any since I switched to Grisoft AVG.

McAfee is the source of all evil and is the tool of satan.

No, that's Symantic. LOL :)

Both Mcafee and Norton cause more trouble then they are worth. If it came down to one or the other I'd just go with a firewall and take my chances...

Ive been running Panda Titanium on the new windows install I did a couple months back, so far I really like it.

I have never had a problem with Norton until its Security Suite. Single programs of theirs have always run well for me. However MacAfee has not...and I tell people to get rid of it as soon as possible. I usually suggest avg free or if they feel like spending the money spend it on avg pro.

*sigh* Symantec's programs seem to want to take over the entire system such that they're impossible to fully remove, while McAfee's antivirus occasionally does damage, and is overpriced.

This is why I stopped using McAfee eons ago. It just caused problems. Haven't had any since I switched to Grisoft AVG.

Same here. Got rid of Norton Firewall as well. Now my system actually works.