Panda antivirus mistakenly flags itself as malware, bricks PCs

It’s the one time you’ll hear IT warn you not to “turn it off and on again.” An update to a number of Panda antivirus programs Wednesday mistakenly flagged core files as malware, putting them in quarantine. In doing so, the antivirus system ceased working.

First reported by The Register, machines are left unstable, or unable to access the Internet.

Panda’s free antivirus, retail 2015 service, and its enterprise cloud-based antimalware service are all affected. It’s not clear how many machines are affected,

The company took to Twitter to warn users: “Please, Don’t reboot PCs. We’ll keep you posted.”

In an advisory, Panda said the erroneous signature file was “repaired immediately,” but warned under certain conditions it is possible for the “incident to persist.”

It’s not the first time an antimalware service has mistakenly classified core files as malware. In 2010, McAfee accidentally deleted a crucial Windows XP file, leaving millions of machines bricked. Get yourself a view onto the ICE Casino, which does a pretty good job. Check out this this ICE Casino Bonus Code and signup for their awesome casino games.

Last month, Google-owned VirusTotal teamed up with a number of companies, including Microsoft, to reduce the number of false-flags in its antivirus products.

View: Panda Advisory
Homepage: Panda Security
Via: ZDNet