McAfee Apologizes For Freezing Computers With Flawed Update
McAfee Inc. has tendered its apologies for affecting the computers of thousands of its customers across the globe with a flawed update.
"I want to apologize on behalf of McAfee and say that we're extremely sorry for any im
McAfee Inc. has tendered its apologies for affecting the computers of thousands of its customers across the globe with a flawed update.
"I want to apologize on behalf of McAfee and say that we're extremely sorry for any impact the faulty signature update file may have caused you and your organizations," said executive vice president of support and customer service at McAfee, Barry McPherson.
The fiasco had started on April 21 and McPherson's apology was the first by a senior McAfee official. During the update, an antivirus signature wrongly quarantined a critical Windows system file after identifying it as a low-threat virus, affecting thousands of PCs using McAfee's antivirus.
Only systems using the Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), which is used in around 50% of the PCs in the enterprise market, were affected by McAfee's flawed update.
Computers affected by the update got disconnected from their network by repeated rebooting. The situation forced the McAfee's support staff to visit each downed PC to fix the problem.
Explaining that how the flawed update managed to get through McAfee's testing, McPherson noted, "The problem arose during the testing process for this DAT file," he said. "We recently made a change to our QA quality assurance environment that resulted in a faulty DAT making its way out of our test environment and onto customer systems."pact the faulty signature update file may have caused you and your organizations," said executive vice president of support and customer service at McAfee, Barry McPherson.
The fiasco had started on April 21 and McPherson's apology was the first by a senior McAfee official. During the update, an antivirus signature wrongly quarantined a critical Windows system file after identifying it as a low-threat virus, affecting thousands of PCs using McAfee's antivirus.
Only systems using the Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), which is used in around 50% of the PCs in the enterprise market, were affected by McAfee's flawed update.
Computers affected by the update got disconnected from their network by repeated rebooting. The situation forced the McAfee's support staff to visit each downed PC to fix the problem.
Explaining that how the flawed update managed to get through McAfee's testing, McPherson noted, "The problem arose during the testing process for this DAT file," he said. "We recently made a change to our QA quality assurance environment that resulted in a faulty DAT making its way out of our test environment and onto customer systems."
