Massive virus, yay!

[merithyn]

ELL OH ELL

McAfee pushed through an update to their enterprise customers containing a corrupt .DAT file, which triggered a false positive. 

Naiiled the entire University of Illinois, too. Lots of posts about it on my friends' Facebook pages. Well, at least they all got the afternoon off.

[Ed Anger]

I wish my workplace network went down. 

[HVC]

I wish my workplace network went down. 

Make your dreams come true. all you need is a hammer and access to the server room

[Caliga]

I wish my workplace network went down. 

My boss sent me home.  I was supposed to try to log in to see if Citrix was back up (as the IT dudes claim to have fixed everything), but I decided to take a nap instead. 

[Razgovory]

McAfee Antivirus Program Goes Berserk, Reboots PCs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 21, 2010

NEW YORK (AP) -- Workplace computers across the world got stuck rebooting themselves Wednesday after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.

Antivirus vendor McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.

Intel Corp. appeared to be one of the victims, according to employee posts on Twitter. Intel did not immediately return calls for comment.

Online users indicated that thousands of computers running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 were affected.

Peter Juvinall, systems administrator at Illinois State University in Normal, said the first computer started rebooting before 9 a.m. It quickly became evident that it was a major problem, affecting dozens of computers at the College of Business alone.

''I originally thought it was a virus,'' he said. When the tech support people concluded McAfee's update was to blame, they stopped further downloads of the faulty software update and started shuttling from computer to computer to get them working again.

McAfee shares fell 20 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $40.39 in afternoon trading.

Finally Windows vista gives me an advantage.

[Barrister]

McAfee Antivirus Program Goes Berserk, Reboots PCs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 21, 2010

NEW YORK (AP) -- Workplace computers across the world got stuck rebooting themselves Wednesday after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.

Antivirus vendor McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.

Intel Corp. appeared to be one of the victims, according to employee posts on Twitter. Intel did not immediately return calls for comment.

Online users indicated that thousands of computers running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 were affected.

Peter Juvinall, systems administrator at Illinois State University in Normal, said the first computer started rebooting before 9 a.m. It quickly became evident that it was a major problem, affecting dozens of computers at the College of Business alone.

''I originally thought it was a virus,'' he said. When the tech support people concluded McAfee's update was to blame, they stopped further downloads of the faulty software update and started shuttling from computer to computer to get them working again.

McAfee shares fell 20 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $40.39 in afternoon trading.

Finally Windows vista gives me an advantage.

[Darth Wagtaros]

ITS TEH CORPRATIONS MAKIN US UPDATE TO WINDOWS 7!

[garbon]

No real person uses McSpyware.

[jimmy olsen]

You'd think it was hilariously ironic if you had listened to any of my diatribes at work about how antivirus companies are a total racket.

Elaborate.

[Solmyr]

Who the fuck uses an anti-virus program that is allowed to do something like reboot without the user's specific permission?

[Razgovory]

No real person uses McSpyware.

I actually bought McAffee and I'm really happy with it.  It doesn't cause problems take forever to do a scan and keeps my PC from getting nasty bugs.  I honestly don't care if the evil corporations can discover my surfing habits alternate between languish, CNN, and porn.

[Caliga]

@Solmyr
Poorly managed IT departments.  Like mine, for example. 

[CountDeMoney]

ELL OH ELL

McAfee pushed through an update to their enterprise customers containing a corrupt .DAT file, which triggered a false positive. 

Yeah, it hit us hard too, kicking in all sorts of Oh Shit Business Continuity protocols.  Our Vice-Chairman was so pissed he was trying to get through to McAfee leadership.

[CountDeMoney]

Who the fuck uses an anti-virus program that is allowed to do something like reboot without the user's specific permission?

Who the fuck issues a batch .dat without testing? 

Oh wait, we know the answer.  McAfee.

[Grey Fox]

@Solmyr
Poorly managed IT departments.  Like mine, for example. 

I multiOS here at work. For some reason the 32bits OS all have MCAfee, yet the 64bits don't.

Poor management indeed.