Anti-virus software is supposed to protect you from having your PC trashed, but one dodgy update is all it takes to put your PC out of actions.
That’s what happened to BitDefender customers this weekend after an update sent on Saturday resulted in key system files on 64-bit versions of Windows to be quarantines, resulting in an unbootable system.
Users are understandably angry, and many claim to have lost faith in the product. It’s not surprising really given the scale of the damage caused to some systems. While some users had to reinstall their PCs completely from scratch in order to get back up and running, others had to pay to have their systems fixed. Others are likely to still be off-the-grid trying to figure out what to do next.
I wonder how many of our readers were nailed by this update?
Thanks to John E. Quantum on Cage Match.
Not me, I run Linux.
The update doesn’t hose PCs – it hoses PCs running one of the inferior Microsoft OSes.
This happens every year or so, with one AV vendor or the other. It usually happens in a translated language version though.
i used windows defender (hey, windows should be able to protect itself best …right?)
malwarebytes
hijack this
ccleaner
and spybot
these can kill pretty much any virus
I gave up on BitDefender. It seemed to work OK but it was a real “nagger” and too often intruded on my work.
new TechGrouch http://tinyurl.com/yg9sww5
Pretty old news. I don’t run antivirus software any more, anyway– it’s always been more likely to cause trouble than prevent it. Got to make an exception for my parents, ’cause they WILL stick their fingers in the light socket to see if the electricity’s on. ‘Course, they’ll be completely SOL if/when the antivirus program eats their PCs.
This is indeed old news. BitDefender made available a small boot CD image that un-quarantines the affected files leaving your PC working as if nothing happened.
Sure, its damn annoying, but the whiney little crybabies that are claiming data loss are either idiots or scammers.
As for AV in general, I simply can’t believe how many people get infected. I got to some pretty shady sites at times and do a lot of P2P but I’ve not got a virus in literally years. The biggest culprit seems to be that freaking LimeWire thing. EVERY computer running that I’ve ever seen has had multiple infections and was slow as a dog thanks to it.
They need to quarantine every user that installs Limewire for contagious stupidity.
In the past couple of years, the computers that I have cleaned up were brought down by rogue anti-spyware programs. These programs mimic an anti-virus alert while the victim is surfing the internet. Since the casual computer user doesn’t know any better, they tell the rogue program to proceed to clean their computer. The computer then is wide open to all kinds of problems.
Interesting that practically none of the real anti-virus and anti-malware programs catch these types of rogue software.
Unfortunately, the casual computer user can not be forced to learn about their coumputer before using it.
Actually,I’m surprised it took this long for this to get noticed here. This was a big deal for many people. I was at least using my computer when it started going nuts. This affected computers world wide, and not everyone was awake or on their computers when this occurred.
In addition, bitdefender was not quick in communicating their software was borking x64 machines. Twitter was the goto place to find out what was going on.
With my computers, I don’t mess around and was not going to wait for a fix. I just wiped my affected machines. Lost a wee bit of data, but no big deal. But nowadays, many people don’t realize they should burn recovery disks, backup their data, etc… Or even know how to do these things. In addition, it looks like some businesses just let the bitdefender software roll out updates. Not smart, but you don’t expect your security software to quarantine every executable file on the machine.
Also, it wasn’t a matter of a quick fix, bitdefender had to come up with more than one fix to get people’s machines right again. Bitdefender did have email set up for those asking for compensation. I responded and got another year on my license.
I have two x64 machines, win 7 and xp. This wasn’t the type of thing that just affected certain versions of windows, or certain configurations, it affected EVERY freakin x64 machine running updates with bitdefender.
This should never have happened, they apparently don’t regression test or have no x64 machines to do so. As someone who works in IT and is quite accomplished at breaking vendor products, this is amazingly shoddy work on their part.
I hated Linux for the longest time. Since it was so easy to install on my PS3, I’ve changed my mind (though the ‘3 is slow as n old dog).
If I ever get fast Internet at home, my next machine is going to be one of the BSD flavors (not Apple OSx).
#11 – And the relevance of your comment was….?
#10 BURN backup disks? hello 1990..jeez, how many disks would burning 2tb’s be?
Z, http://theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1598208/apple-microsoft-trashed-hackers
Perhaps the BitDefender authors are fans of the Tv series “Flash Forward”. And they caused all the x64 PCs to loose conscientiousness, as a test. Just to see if it could be done. Think about it.
Way back when PC viruses weren’t so numerous, anti-virus software made sense. But with thousands of virus signatures to check, and new ones coming out between well before updates. Such software is more of a burden, than effective protection. And as demonstrated, can cause more problems than it solves. And that’s just about true of any software, that gets revised often. Trying to keep up with its competition or the bad guys.
So I just use a good firewall, and a browser that’s as locked down as possible, without being totally useless. Keep my system’s HOSTS file updated, to block potential bad ass URLs. And run Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool, each month. It doesn’t install anything, or run continuously in the background, slowing down the system. The few times I’ve used any AV software, was to clean up a PC that someone else owned, and allowed to become bug ridden. But in the six plus years I’ve been running my old XP machine, without any AV wares, nothing has touched it.
FTA: “quarantines”
shouldn’t that be “quarantined”
I would expect better from ZDNet.
As to the story itself:
Whats worse is that this is a paid for anti-virus and not a free one. I might not mind that much coming from a free anti-virus scanner, but a paid one should not be having this kind of problem.
As if you’d put Romanian software on your computer, let alone trust it for security. They charge nearly as much as reputable (i.e. American) brands, anyway. Why take the chance?
#15 Glenn
‘Way back when computer viruses weren’t so numerous’, What like back in the 50’s? Since the invent of the PC there have always been tons of them.
Computer security is just like your sexlife. If you ain’t getting any, you got no need of a condom. OTOH the internet is a mexican brothel, and using a Windows operating system is like running around with your pants down.
Ok, so don’t navigate to any unknown link, visualize all emails in .txt format, and never use pirate software, and you’ll never need an anti virus. Or get wise and install Linux
I always find it a bit amusing when people say “But I’ve never got a virus.” The last person that told me that needed me to set up some networking for them. I opened a terminal and typed in ipconfig, I got back thirty lines of garbage text.
BitDefender is running my system and hasn’t crash with any updates. So I’m not too sure about the story. I have at least 8 others pcs that have been updated as well and none has crashed.
Whatever the reason, listen to #4 and go to DU’s software discussion section and review the list of helpful and free software one SHOULD have.
The BitDefender update got me good today, also, so it’s not really me posting.
Buy a USB hard drive for a hundred bucks.
Download and install Drive Image XML Use it to create a back up of your system on the new hard drive, the whole dang thing, a bit for bit copy. When you make a major change, like when CS-5 is installed next month, do it again.
Now beg borrow or steal a real windows system disk, not one of those OEM things.
With it create a BartPE disk. Search for info on PEBuilder..
If your as intelligent as you let on when posting here, you have the ultimate back up system. And you can continue to use the wide array of software available for the PC without giving everything up to be shoehorned into what Steve Jobs will let you use at his outrageous prices.
I don’t use shitty anti-virus programs. eSet NOD32 is the only thing good enough for people who know what they are doing.