McAfee update causing issues

just curious guessing, would it be something of promotion of win7?

 

Perhaps you talk about your home product AVIRA . In a corporate environment , this is impossible . It is all automatic process because admins can't rely on end-users' correct decision.

Key is whitelisting common Windows applications. Whitelising them will make the AV never trigger an alert on them (unless , of course, they have been changed or modified).

 

Right.

Whitelisting makes sense. When the 'common Windows applications' have been changed, will the system administrator be notified, or would the files be deleted/cleaned automatically ?

 

I experienced many bad DATs when I used McAfee. All sorts of problems. Probably the main reason why I dropped McAfee.

All AVs have issues, but some are more problematic than others.

 

Of course not . If they get changed from the original ones , the antivirus will scan them against its list of known threats . Otherwise they won't be scanned , too , thus protected from false positive alarms.

 

I didn't phrase my question correctly.
But you answered it well.

 

Hello,

It looks like McAfee's Quality Assurance Dept. knew about this problem beforehand and knowingly released that bad virus definitions [DAT] to their corporate customers.

Blogger Ed Bott at ZDNET has some insight about this matter.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=2031&tag=col1;post-2003

Regards,


Carlos

 

I had more trouble with Norton & I have never had any trouble with McAfee. I used to have Bullguard (BitDefender) & they have had problems recently. I think home users are spared many of the bad updates (from any AS vendor) as corporate machines run a form of more automated software from what I can gather.

I just hope McAfee learn from this. It was corporate machines that suffered from the last bad DAT I think, plus it only affected one of their AV types or releases.

I get McAfee from my ISP but I have often wondered about other freeware alternatives. I've even recently considered buying F-Secure. The plain fact of the matter is that these things happen to all AV distributors. Avast! have had problems recently as well as BitDefender. The problem with McAfee is it is so widely used by corporations, schools, hospitals & colleges & the like in the US. In the UK it isn't so much, but Sophos & Norton are used by a lot of schools & colleges. They haven't got a spotless record either. I suppose it's one of the prices we all have to pay for security. The other being actually purchasing the software in the first place! LOL

 

@Fly

To back-up my statement in above posts

 

We are implementing additional QA protocols for any releases that directly impact critical system files. We are also rolling out additional capabilities in Artemis that will provide another level of protection against false positives by leveraging an expansive whitelist of critical system files and their associated cryptographic hashes

I bloody well hope so!

 

http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Press/Releases/?id=352 A (dirty) move to get customers

Eset's response: http://www.eset.com/blog/2010/04/22/mcafee-and-seo-poisoning-there-but-for-the-grace

 

Another one




There is a lot of competition in the IT industry and I myself don't think that is a ... dirty way of getting more and new clients. It is expected and normal behaviour.

 

it never is until it happens to your company

 

Well , (that says it all).

They all do it almost constantly . FPs like these are mistakes just like another mistakes (of course this mistake is a big and important one) . But aren't missed threats mistakes , too . Aren't their failures in independant tests a mistake ? They are .

And a given vendor doesn't bother showing other vendors' mistakes , especially if it is a big one.

 

This isn't going to help McAfee much. I do hope the big MAC learn from this though. Lightning very rarely hits the same place twice ... they say.

Looks like the Big Mac are saying sorry after all!

McAfee's Shutdown Apology May Be Too Little, Too Late

 

2 more years free of charge. That's what I would want.

 

A choice to switch to another companies AV. That would be a good idea too.