Forgot your password?

typodupeerror
Bug Microsoft Security Windows IT

Bad BitDefender Update Clobbers Windows PCs 150

Posted by Soulskill
from the it-actually-dispatches-a-man-with-a-bat dept.
alphadogg writes "Users of the BitDefender antivirus software started flooding the company's support forums Saturday, apparently after a faulty antivirus update caused 64-bit Windows machines to stop working. The company acknowledged the issue in a note explaining the problem. 'Due to a recent update it is possible that BitDefender detects several Windows and BitDefender files as infected with Trojan.FakeAlert.5,' the company said. The acknowledgment came after BitDefender users had logged hundreds of posts on the topic. Some complained of being unable to reboot their systems."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Bad BitDefender Update Clobbers Windows PCs

Comments Filter:
  • by KarmaMB84 (743001) on Sunday March 21 2010, @12:16PM (#31558058)
    BitDefender is a third party anti-virus package.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 21 2010, @12:30PM (#31558136)

    you good sir, are an idiot. This update has nothing todo with Windows updates. Before you go on a rant about something you obviously have no clue about, how about RTFA first.

    I guess you must work in the food industry after all, probably the dumb fuck who always messes up my food when I go out to eat. Perhaps the root of the problem for you, was that your mom did drugs and drank while you were developing, and then she opted for a water-birth and you drowned a bit too long after you fell out of her cunt.

    Do us a favor, and just go rest in the middle of a busy highway during rush-hour traffic.

  • Re:Or maybe... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 21 2010, @12:45PM (#31558222)
    Viruses. Virii is fake latinization and incorrect.
  • by Rockoon (1252108) on Sunday March 21 2010, @12:45PM (#31558228)
    The shame is that even though you put so much time into that post, you didn't bother knowing what the fuck you were talking about.
  • by runward (1772390) on Sunday March 21 2010, @12:45PM (#31558232)

    This happened to me, too... bitdefender would flag nearly any file, and it first flagged a file that I had just updated, so I was genuinely concerned. The next file is flagged, however, was usbstor.sys, so I knew the AV was probably wrong.

    Some people were running virus scans... tens of thousands of false detection, and all of the files were quarantined or deleted... it was a really bad situation for many. I'm not sure how non-technical users fared.

    I use bitdefender on my computer only - I like the aggressive detection capabilities and reporting options. However, no one else in my house wants to know what their AV is doing - they just want it to work - and bitdefender is probably the worst option for them.

  • by hairyfeet (841228) <[bassbeast1968] [at] [gmail.com]> on Sunday March 21 2010, @12:50PM (#31558268) Journal

    That is why I use and would recommend Comodo Time Machine [comodo.com] as it gives you a nice little screen before boot where you just hit the home key and can restore your machine from snapshot before the little boo boo. And if the Bitdefender burn has turned you off of them I would try Comodo AV/Firewall [comodo.com] from the same company. Both are free, no nags or need to register, and I have been running it on both 32 and 64 bit XP and Windows 7.

    Note-not affiliated with the company, just a humble PC repairman that has tried just about every AV and security software out there and found Comodo to be the best all around. I have been running them on XP X64 for a couple of years now and never had any show stoppers like this. In fact the only problem I've ever seen with a Comodo product is you can't run Time Machine in a dual boot with Windows 7 and XP because 7 changes drive letters, but even then there wasn't any hangup or problems, it simply wouldn't install.

    But if your machine is running a single OS Time Machine can keep problems like TFA from happening. I have had family members bork their machines beyond booting and with Time Machine I was able to walk them through restoring from snapshot in under 15 minutes. hell of a lot better than a multi-hour reinstall.

  • by thatbloke83 (1529851) on Sunday March 21 2010, @01:19PM (#31558438)
    Another Antivirus software package (COMODO) has caused problems of this nature for me at work - it updated, asked to reboot and on rebooting we were just presented with a black screen, the desktop wouldn't load. Fortunately we were able to reboot into safe mode and just uninstall it until there was an update issued, but it was still part of a morning lost... While it's impossible to test every configuration ever, I'd have thought that something that would affect EVERY system in an office using this software should have been picked up during testing... Well you learn from your mistakes. If it happens again, there will be hell to pay, I'm sure.
  • Re:Or maybe... (Score:5, Informative)

    by vbraga (228124) on Sunday March 21 2010, @01:28PM (#31558510) Journal

    Not a native speaker, but from alt.usage.english FAQ [archive.org]:

    Not all Latin words ending in "-us" had plurals in "-i". "Apparatus", "cantus", "coitus", "hiatus", "impetus", "Jesus", "nexus", "plexus", "prospectus", and "status" were 4th declension in Latin, and had plurals in "-us" with a long "u". "Corpus", "genus", and "opus" were 3rd declension, with plurals "corpora", "genera", and "opera". "Virus" is not attested in the plural in Latin, and is of a rare form (2nd declension neuter in -us) that makes it debatable what the Latin plural would have been; the only plural in English is "viruses". "Omnibus" and "rebus" were not nominative nouns in Latin. "Ignoramus" was not a noun in Latin.

    Emphasis mine.

  • by 1s44c (552956) on Sunday March 21 2010, @02:57PM (#31559102)

    The real irony here is, that you even NEED a 3rd party application to make your machine secure.

    It doesn't even do that. The third party application takes time to react to new viruses so can never do more than reduce the insecurity.

  • by drsmithy (35869) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .yhtimsrd.> on Sunday March 21 2010, @08:18PM (#31561724)

    Sounds really nice to you?

    Sounds like paranoia to me.

Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory.

Working...