Bad McAfee Update Shutting Down PCs Worldwide

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Engadget says that a botched McAfee update is shutting down corporate Win XP computers worldwide. Here’s a snippet from the article:

McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to incorrect malware alerts on Wednesday, April 21. The problem occurs with the 5958 virus definition file (DAT) that was released on April 21 at 2.00 PM GMT+1 (6am Pacific Time). Our initial investigation indicates that the error can result in moderate to significant performance issues on systems running Windows XP Service Pack 3.
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McAfee should really consider doing some in-house testing on PCs before they release a virus definition update that cripples the operating system.

FTR, I would never buy anything McAfee...
 
OregonLAN said:
McAfee should really consider doing some in-house testing on PCs before they release a virus definition update that cripples the operating system.

FTR, I would never buy anything McAfee...
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Agreed, this isn't the first time that this has happened in recent history. I use to recomment to people that they don't buy McAfee, but if they had it already i would tell them that they might as well finish up their subscription before moving to something else. now that is going ot change.
 
Another reason why I don't use Mcafee. Also, why I don't use AVG cause I had to deal with some computers that one of their updates had deleted some window's files.
 
Anyone running Mcafee on there machines deserve this :D

or norton for that matter, both are system whores, and they basicly take over your machine.


Trend OfficeScan or SMB Suite 4tw :D
 
[RIP]Zeus;1035622994 said:
Anyone running Mcafee on there machines deserve this :D

or norton for that matter, both are system whores, and they basicly take over your machine.


Trend OfficeScan or SMB Suite 4tw :D
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I also use Trend Micro. Their Trend Worry-Free Business Suite is pretty nice with Exchange spam filter, content and IM filter and anti-virus/malware suite with a super easy to use central admin control panel. Their CAL's are pretty cheap too.
 
Azhar said:
I also use Trend Micro. Their Trend Worry-Free Business Suite is pretty nice with Exchange spam filter, content and IM filter and anti-virus/malware suite with a super easy to use central admin control panel. Their CAL's are pretty cheap too.
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So far it's the best Virus/Spam/Greyware scanner i have found for my network here at home.

I am still running OfficeScan on my DC server and scanmail is running on my Exchange 2k7 server.

How is the worry free and hosted email?

How much different is it?
 
McAfee and ePO can suck it. Got rid of them and their 'enterprise' crapware a while ago.

o0======D
 
Trend came in last in Maximum PC's recent tests. They really didn't have anything good to say about it :)

Azhar said:
I also use Trend Micro. Their Trend Worry-Free Business Suite is pretty nice with Exchange spam filter, content and IM filter and anti-virus/malware suite with a super easy to use central admin control panel. Their CAL's are pretty cheap too.
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macfee is a virus fyi

spybot and firefox security plugins all you need. not 1 tiny infection for 2 years. no spyware, nothing. just update it every week or 2 and your good.
 
SirOsis said:
McAfee and ePO can suck it. Got rid of them and their 'enterprise' crapware a while ago.

o0======D
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We are in the thick of using McAfee ePO and its been a mess for the past year or so. However, our dude handling McAfee finally got a hold of it all, and its been decently smooth. However, our company just got bought out, and I hope McAfee goes out the door.

It kills client machine performance like none other. :(
 
the detection quarantines svchost.exe lol If your going to make a goof, that's a good one

you can run the console from taskmanager and unquarantine it if you are stuck - it should be the only detection from today
 
TechLarry said:
Trend came in last in Maximum PC's recent tests. They really didn't have anything good to say about it :)
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The home version? The business suite has been ok. Our Exchange filter is set to medium and i've not gotten any spam in a very long time. But about a half a year ago we were getting those annoying Men's Health fake ad newsletter for a couple weeks with no way of stopping it, but after that couple weeks, an update put an end to it. That was the only time I was annoyed with Trend.

Nobody in the company has been virused either but that might also be because of multiple layer of business protection and firewall, not just Trend.
 
Is it just me or have antivirus software been causing more issues than actual viruses lately?
 
This issue caused MAJOR headaches at work today. Our campus distributes free Enterprise editions of McAfee Virus Scan, so EVERYONE was coming in with this issue. Nonstop, all day, same thing...
 
Badger said:
This issue caused MAJOR headaches at work today. Our campus distributes free Enterprise editions of McAfee Virus Scan, so EVERYONE was coming in with this issue. Nonstop, all day, same thing...
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Yup, a nightmare for IT guys who have to manage all these systems.
 
No complaints since I switched to Avast from AVG. Left McAfee a long time ago and Norton ... learned my lesson even longer ago ...
 
If someone is running McAfee for antivirus...they deserve to have it shut down because they obviously have no clue how bad McAfee really is.
 
I don't have problems with McAfee. 2010 hasn't slowed my computer down at all. Granted a couple years ago it was horrible, but now, meh it does its job.
 
m3ta1head said:
MSE for free
or NOD32 paid

end of story.
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Yup. I use and recommend MSE for home use, and at work I switched to the corporate version of NOD32 for everyone and couldn't be happier.

We had Trend before that, and it didn't catch anything is seemed like.
 
Same here. MSE at home, and ForeFront at work. ForeFront is great if you have eCALs and a MS licensing agreement.
 
viruses always slow down and sometimes cripple your computer. antivirus software always slows down and sometimes cripples your computer. i see a trend here... i use the windows firewall, whatever firefox has built-in, and i dont click on obviously malicious links. no viruses! windows does just fine on its own, no need for programs that make bootup take longer, slow down performance, and wedge themselves into every cranny of your computer.

however, my friends house mom in her sorority might have just been hit by this. it can hit consumers too and not just corporate copies right? if so then whats the best fix out there right now? there was one linked in the article, should i do that?
 
Badger said:
This issue caused MAJOR headaches at work today. Our campus distributes free Enterprise editions of McAfee Virus Scan, so EVERYONE was coming in with this issue. Nonstop, all day, same thing...
Click to expand...

DerrajX21 said:
Yup, a nightmare for IT guys who have to manage all these systems.
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On Ameriprise computers they are slowly migrating from Mcafee 8.7 to SEP and today was a bitch because of the issue. Our work around was to recopy svchost.exe back to system32 then get DAT 5959 to install. problem was fixed.

 
Moderate to significant performance issues.. Lets just say the university I work at experienced an entire campus wide shutdown of all systems using McAfee on our network. The update pushed down and the systems flagged and destroyed one of the network host processes that runs under svchost.exe. Next thing that happens is the 60 second shutdown imminent window appears and the computer ends up in an endless reboot cycle. By the time the IT guys figured out what the problem was, they already had an entire campus of nearly bricked machines. And the attempted solution to push down the last good DAT file from McAfee was successful at stopping the 60 second shutdown about 10% of the time, but that didn't fix the damaged network host process file which prevented most of the 10% of machines, that were no longer looped in rebooting, from logging into the Domain controller for authentication. Thus the working computers could not get online until an IT guy was able to do a site visit and install a undamaged copy of the network host process.

I always thought the university IT department had made a dumb choice with McAfee, but now with McAfee orchestrating a campus wide computer outage, I hope that IT will go with another vendor for our security solutions.
 
I work for a major corporation, and its safe to say that quite a few thousand people were having an easy day today (if not involved with IT). The IT staff where I'm at rolled out McAffee to replace Symantec in back in November... Hope they learn neither of them is any good.
 
This problem is worse than appears, since in addition to killing the computer, it blows the computer off the network, thus requiring a personal visit to each one by IT. I've seen a rumor that intel got hit hard by this.

klesik said:
I work for a major corporation, and its safe to say that quite a few thousand people were having an easy day today (if not involved with IT). The IT staff where I'm at rolled out McAffee to replace Symantec in back in November... Hope they learn neither of them is any good.
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What do you suggest then for a non profit organization? Symantec is cheap going the non profit route.
 
Here at Comcast we just switched to Norton a month ago. I guess someone in Corporate seen it coming. Also for our customers, McAfee is no longer used and everyone is recommend to download Norton Comcast.net.
 
I'm definitely not going to say my companys techsupport recommends customers avoid McAfee. This is not new. Just a new low. Going back as far as 2005 the updates to McAfee would lock peoples internet connections and youd have to dick around with the Shield crap or just give up and uninstall it.
 
Could have been like the last McAfee update that screwed everyone over... All I gotta say, it could have been worse.
 
I'm glad to see the admit their issue. I got absolutely nothing done for work yesterday. Only good thing is I am a contractor and I can still charge my client for 10 hours :D

I did get some BC2 and MW2 in while I waited for my clients IS team to figure things out.
 
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