McAfee puts computer users at risk

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…