Popular Anti-virus Software Ruins Internet Access of Its Users

If you’re still running Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system then you may be in for a shock if you installed an anti-virus update by Kaspersky. Thousands of people were left without internet access after a faulty anti-virus update was pushed out by Kaspersky Lab.

Russian IT security computer security vendor, which has millions of users worldwide, said the global issue that affected “a number of Australians” had now been resolved. But they also told users to disable its anti-virus software or roll back the update.

The company issued a statement, apologizing “for any inconvenience caused by this database update error”. They went on to say, “Actions have been taken to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.”

IT consultant Graham Lord wrote on the micro-blogging site Twitter: “Bravo on breaking the internet on all your XP clients.” He added “Your update just set back one of my repair jobs by a day’s work.”

One user wrote, “I have now spent almost 24 hours trying to rectify it. I did two online chats with Kaspersky this morning … I’m really disgusted and can see from this forum I’m not alone at least.”

Many users said that Windows 7 did not appear to be affected by the update. Some users tried rolling back the update in question. Others disabled the software’s Web protection. Some had to go to drastic measures and re-install their operating system.

Kaspersky said the issue was known to affect the following versions of its software: “Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows Workstations 6.04 MP4; Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows; Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 for Windows; Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 and 2013; and Kaspersky Pure 2.0.”

The moral to this story is, be careful about the anti-virus software you choose to install. It seems that sometimes they install viruses instead of detecting and deleting them.

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