Thousands of computers running Windows XP have been reportedly crashing or constantly rebooting after a McAfee security update was downloaded and installed.
The security update from the anti-virus software vendor had wrongly labeled part of the Windows OS as a virus, which resulted in Windows XP device chaos.
The McAfee 5958 update mistakenly identified the Windows svchost.exe file as a worm that sought to replace an existing svchost file with its own version in order to take over a machine.
McAfee’s update wrongly labeled svchost as the virus and then actioned a quarantine on it.
This caused machines to automatically shut down and upon restarting, the machines were not able to reload Windows, causing their repeated rebooting.
Windows relies on multiple copies of the svchost file to drive the operating system.
McAfee has since removed the offending update and replaced it with a file without the error. It has also apologised in a statement.
“McAfee teams are working with the highest priority to support impacted customers and plan to provide an update virus definition file shortly. McAfee apologises for any inconvenience to our customers.”
The company said that the incident affected, “less than one half of one percent of our enterprise accounts globally.”
Windows XP machines operating service pack 3 were the hardest hit by the malfunction.
Have you had a problem with an anti-virus update? Leave us a comment and let us know.
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