Looks like a bad week for anti-virus firm McAfee. On Wednesday the 21st, the released a virus definitions file that wrongly detected a Windows XP system file, svchost.exe, as a virus.
The result, thousands of PCs around the world crippled – either constantly rebooting, or failing to connect to a network. The company has issued an apology and a fix, but has a large portion of egg on its face, and taken a serious credibility hit.
Today, we’re hearing of a new problem, and it’s hit one of the FrequencyCast PCs.
Our copy of McAfee Total Protection updated itself this afternoon, and now displays the following:
“Your computer is at risk. Please check your status to you can address any security issues to keep your PC protected. To stay protected, make sure Real-time Scanning and Firewall are on, and that your subscription is active and up to date.”
The message has a “Check Status” and “Close” button, neither of which work.
Going into the Internet Security app the long way round identifies the problem with:
“Your Computer Is At Risk. Real-Time Scanning is Off”
Enabling Real Time Scanning with the “Turn on” button enables the scanner for two seconds, and then you’re back in “At Risk” again.
Trying to start the service manually returns: “Could not start the McAfee Real-time Scanner service on Local Computer. Error 2: The system cannot find the file specified”
Checking the McAfee forum reveals that others have been hit too, and at the time of writing, there doesn’t appear to be a fix.
If you’ve been affected, or if you know a fix, please comment in the box below. We may feature some of your McAfee comments in our upcoming Tech podcast…
April 23rd, 2010 at 7:08 pm
We’ve found a fix! the oas-disabled-fix solved our problem – Details om McAfree’s forum at http://community.mcafee.com/thread/21946
June 7th, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I am constantly running into McAfee error messages and my real time virus scanner is being disabled by McAfee. I tried their “virtual inspector” which showed me some report basically saying that McAfee files had errors, but nothing changed. Everyone I know in our tech community recently switched from McAfee to other products. This is unfortunate, but I am hearing it from all my friends – McAfee product is not safe to use. I was using McAfee for number of years, but they seem to lose it. I am searching the Web for user feedback on other security products to make sure I stick with the most reliable software. I am hearing Norton is also faulty, and would like to hear what others think – which software provides stable virus protection?