AV program identified kosher software as
malware
An update of McAfee's AV software appears to have stuffed up a
number of users' PCs.
Forums show that it's affecting McAfee customers in
Germany, Italy, and other parts of the EU. One user had half the machines he
looked after knocked out when he upgraded his network. The update
identified winvnc.exe and several other legitimate files as malware and
attempted to quarantine them.
Without these systems files the computer was
effectively a brick. The glitch appears to be caused when older VirusScan
engines install DAT 5664, which McAfee seems to have pushed out over the
weekend. The list of files the software hates include files belonging to
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Compaq drivers and the McAfee-associated
McScript.exe.
With America closed for the holiday weekend it seemed that
there were few attempts to fix the problem.