Big News: Norton AntiVirus cripples thousands of PCs in Ch..

External Since: May 18, 2007 Posts: 2

Norton AntiVirus cripples thousands of PCs in China
By Lu EnJie - Fri, 05/18/2007 - 09:45.

A routine upgrade of anti-virus software has disabled tens of
thousands of PCs in China, according to local media reports. The
faulty upgrade caused Symantec's Norton AntiVirus software to remove
critical Windows XP system files, the reports state.

The system files moved or deleted by the software include netapi32.dll
and lsasrv.dll, according to Sohu News (in Chinese). The software
incorrectly identifies the files as being infected with the
Backdoor.Haxdoor trojan. With these files removed, Windows XP will no
longer start up, and even the system safe mode no longer functions.
Only Chinese-language versions of Windows appear to be affected so
far.

The Norton AntiVirus application is part of Norton's 360 suite and it
is pre-installed in many PCs sold in China, indicating that the
problem could potentially affect millions of users.
Patched PCs vulnerable

The problem appears to stem from an update Microsoft released in
November 2006, which contained new versions of some system files, as
PCs which have not applied this update are unaffected.

Symantec has acknowledged the issue and is working on a solution,
reports said - although there is no apparent mention of it on the
company's Chinese website.

PC owners affected by the issue may be able to restore the missing
files from their Windows XP installation CDs. However, since piracy of
Windows XP is common in China, some users may not have access to these.

External Since: Aug 05, 2005 Posts: 424

Puss in Boots wrote:

> A routine upgrade of anti-virus software has disabled tens of
> thousands of PCs in China,

Really?

Tens of thousands of PC's in China are actually running some form of
AV software ?!

> The problem appears to stem from an update Microsoft released in
> November 2006

Wow - and those PC's in China are actually configured for automatic XP
updates?

> PCs which have not applied this update are unaffected.

Presumably there are millions of those...