Bad Norton Antivirus update zaps 'millions' of PCs to blue screen of death!

Kiran.dks · 21-05-2007, 04:02 PM

Bad Norton Antivirus update zaps 'millions' of PCs
Symantec serves up blue screen of death in China

A faulty update to Symantec's Norton Antivirus package has disabled "millions" of PCs in China, according to local press reports.

One report carried by China's official news agency put the number of affected PCs in the millions, although others said that the figure was more like thousands or tens of thousands. The affected PCs cannot be started up.

PCs running Windows XP began to fail after they downloaded a virus definitions update file on Friday. The regular updates are automatically pushed out from Symantec's servers.

Users explained that nothing went wrong immediately, but that the next restart showed the infamous Windows 'Blue Screen of Death' instead of the normal start-up sequence. The PCs could not be restored to operation by any normal means.

Symantec's China office explained in a statement that the software had mistakenly detected a virus in some key Windows XP system files. These files were either deleted or quarantined.

Users posting in online forums said that whole offices full of PCs had suffered the problem, which appears to afflict only PCs running the Simplified Chinese language version of Windows XP.

Symantec has sent out a revised update file, but this only fixes PCs that have not been restarted since applying the original faulty update.

The company has also described a command line procedure for replacing the deleted files with copies stored on the Windows XP installation CD-Rom.

Antivirus experts in China said that the issue is only affecting PCs with the Windows Update Service turned on, as the erroneously identified virus files were part of a security update applied to Windows late last year.

Source

Vishal Gupta · 21-05-2007, 04:07 PM

Poor Norton. A bad day for Norton.

Choto Cheeta · 21-05-2007, 04:19 PM

2 things, I am not in China, and most of i am not with Poor Norton AVS

Vishal Gupta · 21-05-2007, 04:21 PM

^^ Neither Me.

But think about those poor Norton AV Users.

eagle_y2j · 21-05-2007, 04:23 PM

No Windows...No Norton ..No Tension

Third Eye · 21-05-2007, 04:29 PM

Who uses norton

Kiran.dks · 21-05-2007, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tech Genius

Who uses norton

The millions people in China who's PC has become BSOD!

eagle_y2j · 21-05-2007, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiran_tech_mania

The millions people in China who's PC has become BSOD!

lol Millions of chinese wasting there hard earned money ...

i_am_crack · 21-05-2007, 05:05 PM

Lucky Indians....Unlucky Norton chinese....

abhijangda · 21-05-2007, 05:24 PM

Oh! poor chinese people. Not using norton so safe. But can you tell me in which definition update of norton does this happn. What was the date of the defintion. As I have downloaded defintions of 14-05 of norton.

sachin_kothari · 21-05-2007, 05:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abhijangda

Oh! poor chinese people. Not using norton so safe. But can you tell me in which definition update of norton does this happn. What was the date of the defintion. As I have downloaded defintions of 14-05 of norton.

it wont affect u. if u have read the post it clearly states that Windows XP running Simplified Chinese are affected.

Kiran.dks · 21-05-2007, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abhijangda

Oh! poor chinese people. Not using norton so safe. But can you tell me in which definition update of norton does this happn. What was the date of the defintion. As I have downloaded defintions of 14-05 of norton.

It applies only to simplified Chinese language version of Windows XP. No problems for English & other languages version. Norton recent released update deletes a critical system32 file of Windows XP (Chinese version) leading to the system not able to boot!