15
2012
Avira Antivirus Fail
An article by connection
Avira has sent out a defective antivirus update that is causing paid versions of its product to detecting and blocking critical Windows processes, effectively rendering millions of PCs unusable. What a fail…
So an article posted on ZDnet today talks about a major fail on Avira’s part which is causing Avira to detect critical windows files to be flagged as malicious and rendering millions of PCs unusable. Here are the files that are being flagged:
- \windows\system32\dllhost.exe
- \windows\system32\explorer.exe
- \windows\system32\iexplorer.exe
- \windows\system32\notepad.exe
- \windows\system32\regedit.exe
- \windows\system32\rundll32.exe
- \windows\system32\taskeng.exe
- \windows\system32\wuauclt.exe
I’m wondering who skimped out on testing this update on a test system before pushing it out to production because they deserve to be shot for not noticing this sooner. I think it is the responsibility of not only Antivirus vendors but all software companies to thoroughly test their patches and updates to ensure you aren’t going to brick the end-user.
What I’d really like to know is how Avira is going to fix this PR blunder. I’ll be following up with Avira to try to get some more information on how/why this happened and update you along the way.
ZDNet posted the following temporary fix for users affected by this fail-update:
- Bring up the Task Manager. Hit CTRL + SHIFT + ESC, right-click on the task bar and choose “Start Task Manager,” or hit CTRL + ALT + DEL and click on “Start Task Manager.”
- Click on File, then “New task (Run…),” type “c:\program files\avira\antivir desktop\avconfig.exe” or equivalent, and then click OK. This will open the Avira Antivirus configuration window.
- Click on the Expert mode switch at top left.
- Click Realtime Protection on the left panel and then on Proactiv. Untick the check box for “Enable Proactiv” on the right. Click Apply.
- Restart your computer.
