Anti-virus software company McAfee have today been forced to issue sincere and grovelling apologies to its customers across the globe after releasing the soon-to-be infamous “Update 5958”. This update to its virus definitions database wrongly identifies part of windows (svshost.exe) as the virus “wecorl.a”.
Once applied, the update forces affected machines into a continuous cycle of rebooting, which naturally causes a potent mix of consternation and fear among the users of said machines. McAfee have now released a fix tot the problem, but only after causing chaos at notable companies such as Intel – not the best PR episode for a company that enjoys a reasonably well deserved reputation for quality.
The problem, of course, is not just the damage done by the false-positive in the update, but also, and less tangibly, in the public attitude to the regular installation of security updates and fixes. Generally speaking it is always a good idea to apply these updates as soon as possible, with the only result being improved stability and security, but giving the doubting user any reason to hesitate can only (and ironically) play into the hands of the virus-software creators themselves!
Any reduction in update-effort can only make harder the jobs of IT Support Providers, who religiously spread the word that updating is good and procrastination is bad!
No comments:
Post a Comment