Trend Micro apologised on Monday for distributing a faulty software update that caused IT workers around the world to spend the weekend fixing their systems.
The Japan-based antivirus company has promised to compensate customers whose computers running Windows XP SP2 were disabled by the update. The company said the update was only available for ninety minutes and caused "certain performance issues" with CPUs, but IT managers are furious.
"This damn update took down virtually all 1,500 of our Windows XP SP2 PCs and required many hours of work to resolve," said one angry reader in an email sent to ZDNet UK. "The machines were rendered inoperable once this signature hit, and required many of us to work through Friday night. Our entire IT staff had to come in on Saturday to attempt to fix this disaster."
"How in the world could Trend [Micro] release a signature file that disables all Windows XP SP2 machines? Why didn't [they] test this signature before it got released? I cannot believe that Trend Micro has no XP SP2 machines to test on before they release patches, and if they don't they better get some ASAP. If this happens again, I can assure you that we will be finding a new antivirus vendor for our organization," he added.
A second reader reported that every one of his company's 250 desktops had to be visited by a technician and repaired after being hit by the problem.
Trend Micro, which denied rumours that the update included a virus, said it didn't know what had caused the incident but that it had now issued a fix and was working with channel partners to solve the problem.
"We apologise to the people and we are willing to compensate them for the extra work they had to do their machines," said Raimund Genes, president of Trend Micro for Europe. "It's a pattern file that we made a mistake on. I would say this is an isolated incident, but we have to figure out why it wasn't caught by the quality assurance."
A Trend Micro spokeswoman later said that compensation claims would be assessed "on a case by case basis".
Genes said that most of the businesses affected were located in Japan, and that few complaints had been received from customers in the US and Europe.
Investors of the company have been informed, but Genes said the incident could affect share prices.
"I just talked to the [chief financial officer]. Of course it has an impact on stock today. We haven't decided what kind of compensation we will offer."
The update affected versions 7.5 and above of Trend Micro's Scan Engine. The company said it changed a decompression algorithm in the update file to combat a rise in the number of viruses that recruit PCs for bot nets.
Talkback
I got caught by the glitch, as I was downloading the 1394 update sometime between 6 and 7 PM EDT. The machine (Sony PCV-RX590G running Win XP SP2) locked up as it was installing, and could not reboot in regular or safe or any [other option offered by F8] mode. Hence, could not access any drives to make changes.
Unfortunately, after about 12 hours of different attempts to get a bootup, I thought my hard drive had become corrupted thus I reformatted it thinking it might have been contaminated by a virus.
Fortunately, I had recently done a Drive Image [tm] 7 backup onto an external hard drive; and was able to access it for a restoration using their recovery program from a bootable CD drive.
Boo on Trend Micro for issuing that bad 1394 -- costing me over a day of aggravation. Three cheers for Power Quest and their Drive Image 7 program.
1,000's of employees at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY was affected by this screw up.
Get Linux. Why do users by the millions continue to subject themselves to this kind of nonsense? Why not use a secure operating platform in the first place? Are they insane? Is there some sort of mass hysteria at play that keeps these people using Microsoft products after being victimized by its terrible quality over and over again? Why use an operating system that was never designed to be secure, then prop it up with this anti-virus nonsense? ARE YOU PEOPLE CRAZY?
Notice how the "linux" lover won't post his name? what are you ashamed of? oh, could it be that Microsoft keeps 99% of the technical staff employed, versus less than 1% who spend most of their time attempting to get some applications running under linux so end users can be "somewhat" productive.
get real, get some balls while you are at it.
Brian Beatty
Go ahead and do business the same old way, Mr. Beatty. Continue to build your fiefdom of subordinates whose only role in life is to support an inefficient enterprise. Meanwhile, the rest of the world rolls on. We'll bury organizations like yours by doing things better, faster, cheaper. I just hope we replace you in the marketplace before you're able to retire. Wouldn't that be justice?
>Name: Brian Beatty
>Occupation: CTO
>Comment: Notice how the "linux" lover won't >post his name? what are you ashamed of? oh, could it >be that Microsoft keeps 99% of the technical staff >employed, versus less than 1% who spend most of their >time attempting to get some applications running under >linux so end users can be "somewhat" productive.
>get real, get some balls while you are at it.
>Brian Beatty<
Where you been all the time sunny jim you i am affraid are the one that needs to "GET REAL" . i spen ZERO time trying to get apps working they run out of the box first time , Your problem is you are unable to accept that your choice of powered virus is just not up to the job these days and Oh what is this i see 32bit windBloZe hiding under and emulator layer to make it look like 64 bit just like there is STILL DOS in there as well and as for longhorn well maybe you had best reaname tiger ripped off from apple or better know as BSD ,,...
OK Linux Lovers. If your world is so great how is it that 90%+ of Secunia Security Advisories are showing up flaws (some are downright dangerous) and weaknesses in your system?
I'm no great fan of MS but I'm stuck with it. I don't use IE and OE anymore - just the briliant Firefox and Thunderbird. I tried Linux on several occasions and got so many malware, trojans and the like I cleaned my hard disk and started again - just to be sure.
The only good thing I can see about Linux is that cute little penguin.
MH
I bought my Gateway 420 GR from Best Buy in Columbus, Ohio. Roadrunner said it was the mfgr's problem and Gateway informed me that I had to go through their retail network for customker service. I returned the CPU to their store and only received it back last night. It cost me $118 to hyave the virus removed, the sopyware removed and the system tuned up. What will Trend Micro do to repay my customer service charges?
>>OK Linux Lovers. If your world is so great how is it that 90%+ of Secunia Security Advisories are showing up flaws (some are downright dangerous) and weaknesses in your system?
Fair question. Open source software uses a development model that doesn't hide anything. All flaws are right out there for the entire world to see. So, everyone knows about every flaw, large and small. Most security vulnerabilities in the open source world are corrected within minutes of being discovered and disclosed. By contrast, MS operating systems contain at least tens of thousands of bugs, many representing security vulnerabilities, that absolutely no one knows about. That is, until crackers find and exploit these vulnerabilities. By then, Windows users have the virus on their systems that exploits the vulnerability. Then, usually mant months later, MS patches the flaw. In the meantime, millions of users suffer system exploits.
>>I tried Linux on several occasions and got so many malware, trojans and the like I cleaned my hard disk and started again - just to be sure.
This is so far fetched as not to be credible. You must be one of the hoard of astroturfers on the MS payroll. You should learn that if your FUD goes too far, it just isn't believed.
What makes me so mad about all this, was that they never notified me of the problem. I wasted hours trying to fix this. I ended up finding out about the problem from a friend.
I can't reach Trend Micro for retribution on the crash.
I am having a real problem with Trend at the moment.
I have been having an ongoing hassle which keeps knocking me off line (am running PC-cillin, latest version)
Thier help line emails to me are getting less and less relevant to the prob!
And still no resolution after 2 weeks...
And the pop-up telling me to re-verify is a damn nuisance, -I paid 'em my money, why isn't 'verification' automatic? So I am without latest updates until this is sorted.
Maybe its time to start looking around for a new AV company?
I quit Norton/Symantec when it ruined its product... now to quit Trend too?