Security Advisor

Sophos Warns Users of Self

When providing antivirus services to paying customers, don't have your own software red flag your software. That seems like a bad business decision.

Taking a page out of the Oracle patching playbook,  enterprise antivirus software company Sophos jumped the gun a bit when it rushed out its latest software update.

Instead of patching its software with the latest info on the newest attacks, the antivirus software viewed all programs with update utilities as threats to Windows machines -- and yes, this includes its own software.

While this could be a bit of annoyance on a home pc running a consumer-based antivirus program, it's a complete nightmare for IT who may have this installed on hundreds of systems.

"About 9:20 this evening, every PC on my network (about 100 of them) started sending me an email every 10 minutes saying that a virus had been detected in one of the DLL files of Sophos Endpoint Security & Control," shared one annoyed IT pro.

Sophos quickly updated its software and has sent along its deep-felt apologies to its customers and the poor souls in IT who might have suffered coronary issues due to the parade of false warnings.

Got your own personal harrowing security stories to share? Send them my way at [email protected].

About the Author

Chris Paoli (@ChrisPaoli5) is the associate editor for Converge360.

Featured

comments powered by Disqus

Subscribe on YouTube