McAfee False Detection Locks Up Windows XP
Summary: McAfee's DAT 5958 virus definition file, released April 21 at 6am Pacific Time, falsely flagged the legitimate Windows svchost.exe process as malicious, causing Windows XP Service Pack 3 machines to lock up, fall into reboot loops, or lose networking. SANS incident handler Johannes Ullrich reported dozens of complaints, and McAfee's support forum thread drew more than 27,000 views and 83 replies before the forum itself went down under unusually large traffic.
Why it matters: A single faulty definition file pushed to corporate endpoints left administrators manually touching each affected Windows XP SP3 machine, and McAfee's own statement said it was not aware of significant impact on consumer customers while the support forum filled with reports to the contrary.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
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