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.
2 thoughts on “McAfee Security Update Crashes Windows XP Devices”
I don’t have McAFEE. I don’t like McAFEE, yet it sends my PC into reboot, how do i replace the missing file when i can’t start the machine, I’m trying to reformat the HD since wednesday only found out today from an artical in the morning paper that it was the fault of McAFEE, sorry do’s not help ****
I’m operating an XP system on service pack 3 and have McAfee. My computer has recently been acting glitchy. It started several weeks ago about the time windows either updated hotfix KB979306 (2/25/10) or security update KB975561 (3/12/10). The Windows update constantly shows a shutdown required to update the system with 15 items. It updates, then then requires it again. ad infinitum.
More recently (within the last week or so), odd things have begun happening. The volume control has gone missing from the taskbar, the paper scrunch sound has gone missing when I delete items in the recycle bin, and a system shutdown initiates every so often with a countdown timer (and actually reboots the computer if I don’t manually stop it).