Panda anti-virus labels itself as malware, then borks EVERYTHING

[Reefa]

Panda users had a bad hair day on Wednesday, after the Spanish security software firm released an update that classified components of its own technology as malign.

As a result, enterprise PCs running the anti-virus software tied themselves in something of a knot, leaving some systems either unstable or unable to access the internet. A Panda spokesman confirmed the problem while advising that the issue was well in hand.

"A bad update was published temporarily today [Wednesday] that resulted in some system files being detected by the Panda engine, a replacement update was promptly published removing the error and restoring the wrongly quarantined files," a Panda representative told El Reg.

"At present we recommend NOT rebooting systems. This will allow us to update the system with the amended update. This update will also restore files previously detected," he added.

An official advisory on the problem says that the issue was limited to Panda Cloud Office Protection, Retail 2015 products and Panda Free AV. Users are strongly advised not to restart their computer until a fix is available.

El Reg heard about the Panda slip-up via a tip from reader Austin, who ought to be excused claiming overtime on the back of the problem.

"Dozens of installs of Panda Antivirus across multiple sites all just detected components of itself as a virus, simultaneously," Austin explained. "Perhaps 60 in total across five sites, out of an installed base of around 300."

"If you let it disinfect 'the problem' with a reboot, you have no network access post-reboot."

"Files we've seen 'detected' include psanmodrep.dll and alertsmanager.dll – both key components of Panda Antivirus itself," he added.

Users of Panda's anti-virus took to Twitter to air their woes.

Any of you with Panda Anti Virus - DO NOT REBOOT YOUR COMPUTER!!!! @Panda_Security for updates- I've just lost 20 computers

— Mark Read (@Team_Mark) March 11, 2015

Worst antivirus every. Panda has today wiped files from system32 leaving rebooted computers bricked. Do not reboot, update Panda.

— Erroneus (@Erroneus) March 11, 2015

False positives involving anti-virus updates have affected all vendors from time to time.

The consequent problems are at their worst when Windows operating system files are falsely classified as potentially malign and quarantined, resulting in unusable Windows systems. Panda's auto-immune screw-up would have caused comparable problems.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/11/panda_antivirus_update_self_pwn/

[thanU]

:lol:

[Amigaspace]

Unless you are a Panda user, this is hilarious.

[smallhagrid]

A bit from memory lane:

Way back when - in the days of floppy disks being used to distribute AV updates (1994 or thereabouts...), Panda sent out an update disk INCLUDING a nice, fresh virus for all its paying customers.

I was very glad that I was always careful to scan all new disks with F-Prot (which was great back then) and found it before it found me.

Panda 1st tried denial - then admitted to it and released another update and a fix - but by then I and many others had decided that as long as they were not competent enough to NOT send out viruses that they were also NOT competent enough to pay anymore.

I've never used or tried any s/w from them since - and as you can see above, the incident has not been forgotten.

Now it seems they've gone one worse in their incompetence - wow.

[Joe13]

[04103079] Suspect file (false positive)

Information regarding a problem with the signature file in PCOP and Retail 2015

[sirri]

Oh no..not again. Every single AV I used had bad signature update experiences and led user to destroy OS. C'mon, did you never learn ?!

[anuseems]

infact hilarious for others and the last line in the post " False positives involving anti-virus updates have affected all vendors from time to time." made me ensure my repair disc and back up once again .

[steven36]

LOL , Reminds of the time kapersky had a bad signature update once and started deleting system components . Avast was deleting my AMD Catalyst before and other stuff . Now I just use NOD32 stable. :naughty:

[johndoe]

didn't panda servers get pwned as well a few months back? they seem totally inept, at least enough to NOT be in the antivirus business... maybe they should enter the operating system business so microsoft can have some competition :D

[steven36]

Panda is been around since 1990 , Ive not used it since around the early 2000s . I used Kaspersky for years then used Avast for years and now I use ESET because it has less false positives than the rest of them . You can always use On a demand scanner for a second option that dont delete stuff in real time and figure it out for yourself . But I run stuff like Malwarebytes and Hitmanpro they never find nothing but false positives if I have my fixes not put up . But there good to keep around just in case . B)

[212eta]

I use just on-demand scanners; no resident (real-time) ones.

[prijatelj.v]

win 10 + Defender...do not need any AV...
Go to the new OS...
Forget this AV and stories about them...
any AV is the past...I guarantee,greeting...