More updating woes
Another troublesome month for security vendors.
Last month we reported on problems for Kaspersky, Sophos and Microsoft
caused by faulty updates. This month it is the turn of McAfee and Symantec
(or rather their customers) to suffer updating woes.
In early March, McAfee DAT file 4715 wreaked havoc when it caused several
versions of McAfee VirusScan to quarantine or delete numerous widely used
application files including Microsoft Excel, Macromedia Flash Player, Adobe
Update Manager and the Google Toolbar Installer. McAfee's red-faced
developers were quick to notify customers of the error and were able to
release a replacement file within two and a half hours.
A few days later, Symantec users found themselves unable to connect to AOL
after having received an update. According to Symantec the bug was corrected
within seven hours. The company also published a fix for users who
continued to have trouble. Of course, for those using AOL to connect to the
Internet, downloading a patch from a website was
easier said than done. In this instance, Symantec recommended disabling the
security software temporarily
to retrieve the patch.
01 April 2006
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