McAfee Anti-Virus Update Kills Hundreds of Thousands of XP Computers

Mushroom Cloud

The McAfee update blew up "real good"

Kaaa-Boom! Individuals and small businesses who used McAfee for their anti-virus protection and happened to be using Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed, may have been sent into an infinite loop yesterday after receiving the latest McAfee Virus Definition update.

The update was 5958 DATA, and went out early Wednesday the 21st of April. According to many articles on the web, immediately after the update was deployed, users were experiencing the familiar BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and DCOM errors. Those seeking support were greeted with long waits in queue. The issue appears to be that on XP SP3 machines, McAfee would improperly diagnose machines as being infected with W32/wecorl.a malware after the update.

McAfee quickly reported that the issue affected only “less than one half of one percent” of their ENTERPRISE customers. However, untold numbers, estimated by many to be in the hundreds of thousands of others were affected.

McAfee has pulled the update for the time being.

Not that this could not happen to any anti-virus provider such as Symantec / Norton, Trend Micro, etc, it is just that many feel that this was handled in a less than perfect way by McAfee.

If you are experiencing issues such as BSOD or reboots and are running McAfee, or know someone who is, please have them give us a call, we will assist them in recovering from the inconvenience.

On another note, Homeland Secure IT, LLC is a Trend Micro Anti Virus reseller, and we can help put an end to your virus concerns with the entire suite of offerings from Trend Micro. Whether you need one computer protected, or 1000 computers, there is a Trend Micro product that is right for you. Many small and medium sized businesses have servers and the Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Standard or Advanced product is perfect for them! Advanced offers protection of your Microsoft Exchange Server against malware and SPAM! Yes, that’s right, the Trend Micro WFBS Advanced can help eliminate spam!

Call us an arrange a free consultation today for your business! If you have a non-profit organization, we offer special pricing for Trend Micro products. 864-990-4748 and talk with John M. Hoyt or Ben Zuber

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