Symantec false positive cripples thousands of Chinese PCs
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A signature update to Symantec's anti-virus software crippled thousands of Chinese PCs Friday when the security software took two critical Windows .dll files for malware.
According to numerous blog entries from Chinese computer users, a virus signature database seeded yesterday mistook two system files of a Chinese edition of Windows XP SP2 as a Trojan horse which Symantec dubs "Backdoor.Haxdoor." The anti-virus software -- Norton AntiVirus, for example, or the anti-virus component of the Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security suites -- then quarantined the netapi32.dll and lsasrv.dll files.
"With these files removed, Windows XP will no longer start up, and even the system Safe Mode no longer functions," said one user writing to the alt.comp.anti-virus newsgroup this morning.
Late Friday, China time, the Chinese Internet Security Response Team (CISRT) posted an alert on its English-language blog. "It's a terrible day for lots of Chinese users (especially Enterprise Users) who use Norton products today," CISRT said. "This issue has made a huge effection to Chinese people." Other reports claimed that more than 7,000 users had already contacted Rising Antivirus, a Chinese security company, asked for help on how they could recover their PCs. On Rising's home page, its threat gauge was rated at red late Friday, the highest ranking this year.
In an e-mailed statement, Symantec acknowledged the signature update bug and said it re-released a new update late Thursday, U.S. time. The Cupertino, Calif.-based security vendor also said that only Simplified Chinese versions of Windows XP SP2 that have been patched with a Microsoft fix from November 2006 were impacted
If the PC hasn't been rebooted, users can grab the revised signature update to fix the problem, said Symantec. But if Windows was restarted after the flawed update, the user has a much harder row to hoe. Because the bad signature update removed the two .dll files, Windows won't boot -- it ends in a Blue Screen of Death, said CISRT -- and so there's no way to retrieve the new signature or to restore from a backup.
"Customers impacted by this issue following reboot of an affected system can return their system(s) to the previous state through use of the Windows recovery console," Symantec said. XP's recovery console is a command line-driven tool that gives limited access to the PC and its hard drive. Users writing on online forums recommended users copy the two .dll files from their Windows restore CD to the hard drive.
A likely snafu in that scenario, however, is that many Chinese users don't have a restore CD because they're running pirated copies of Windows.
"Norton this time has made a very serious mistake," the Chinese-language Sogou news site said [translation by Babelfish -- eds.].
"All the main news channel in China has reported this since 6 in the morning ECT +8, but symantec keeps silence," someone identified as "Ink" said on the Wilders Security Forum.
Other anti-virus companies have gone through similar fiascos. In March, users blamed Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Live OneCare for deleting Outlook e-mail files, although the company denied that the security service was at fault. More than two years ago, Trend Micro Inc. distributed a flawed virus definition file that slowed thousands of PCs to a crawl. Three months later, the anti-virus vendor said that the incident had run up $8.2 million in direct costs to the company. -
GG lor... one of the disadvantages of piracy...
Should I say just start using Linux?
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i don't use norton antivirus or their software, so no worries for me
macfee ftw!!!!!!!!! -
mcafee slows down the pc CONSIDERABLY if u'r doing development workOriginally posted by allentyb:
i don't use norton antivirus or their software, so no worries for me
macfee ftw!!!!!!!!!
i think each time u change a file, it'll do a scan
so if u open a project (which can include several different source code files) or recompile the executable, it'll take very long
surprisingly, i don't have this problem with norton (not that i'm satisfied with norton)
anybody got any recommendations for good antivirus programs for small companies? -
NOD32... but since you are doing development work, it might just trigger off NOD32...Originally posted by kalangkabo:mcafee slows down the pc CONSIDERABLY if u'r doing development work
i think each time u change a file, it'll do a scan
so if u open a project (which can include several different source code files) or recompile the executable, it'll take very long
surprisingly, i don't have this problem with norton (not that i'm satisfied with norton)
anybody got any recommendations for good antivirus programs for small companies?
You can try Kaspersky or AVG... -
Linux.. yar~Originally posted by ndmmxiaomayi:GG lor... one of the disadvantages of piracy...
Should I say just start using Linux? -
I think NOD32, Bitdefender and Kaspersky these 3 rated quite highly. Norton's updates are like once per week, while McAfee really slows down the computer. I used to have Norton, McAfee and Kaspersky, and til now still using Kaspersky!
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Norton updates daily too, if you get the correct version... there are two versions, one which updates daily, another one that updates weekly.Originally posted by Erwin_Rommel:I think NOD32, Bitdefender and Kaspersky these 3 rated quite highly. Norton's updates are like once per week, while McAfee really slows down the computer. I used to have Norton, McAfee and Kaspersky, and til now still using Kaspersky!
McAfee... I like its firewall... good one. I traced lots of kiddies this way.