Messages

1

General Software Discussion / Re: False Positive on Software (Generic.Dx) by McAfee Today: McAfee Response and Fix

« on: April 22, 2008, 06:28 AM »

I am trying hard not to be cynical and am prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.  I will keep you all posted.

Peter

2

General Software Discussion / Re: False Positive on Software (Generic.Dx) by McAfee Today: McAfee Response and Fix

« on: April 22, 2008, 02:57 AM »

Thought you may be interested in this reply I just received from McAfee.  It came as a result of a letter I wrote to the US, UK and European headquarters.   It seems to have hit the right button:

First of all I wish to express my regret in the inconvenience you and your customers may have experienced with the reported incidents. I’ve contacted Mr. Mann, Sr. Manager Avert Labs and he suggests the following:

GP-IT can work with McAfee to get copies of their applications added to our False Testing Rigs, systems that contain known good files that we verify against on every dat release test.  If this is something GP-IT is interested in, have them provide us with the contact phone number for someone within GP-IT for us to work with and Avert Labs will contact them to get this process started.

I’d appreciate if you could forward the name and contact details of your liaison with McAfee to me so that similar occurrences may be avoided in the future.

With kind regards

Ronald Rosbergen
Manager Customer Service EMEA
McAfee, Inc.

Peter

3

General Software Discussion / Re: False Positive on Software (Generic.Dx) by McAfee Today: McAfee Response and Fix

« on: April 12, 2008, 05:38 AM »

I know that a number of my users have emailed McAfee already.  I am following this up with a letter that I am currently writing

Doubt if it will do any good but it makes me feel better 

4

General Software Discussion / Re: False Positive on Software (Generic.Dx) by McAfee Today: McAfee Response and Fix

« on: April 11, 2008, 03:51 PM »

Sadly we are talking about the UK NHS IT project here.  £14bn ($27bn) spent on the largest IT project in the world.  It doesnt work properly and as you have so correctly observed it uses C**p software. 

The project is so advanced that it doesnt work with IE7 and everyone has to use IE6 or it crashes.

So everyone has managed McAfee installed which then makes a dogs dinner of the job it's meant to do

Sigh . . .   

Peter

5

General Software Discussion / Re: False Positive on Software (Generic.Dx) by McAfee Today: McAfee Response and Fix

« on: April 11, 2008, 02:56 PM »

I agree.  However I suspect that McAfee will say that what happens when a suspected virus is found is up to the user.  There are usually options to be alerted/quarantine/delete permanently.

They will then hide behind the fact that what happens is the responsibility of the end user

No comfort to me though as the end users don't quite see it like that 

Another interesting point is that the risk identified in my files by McAfee this time is "MalWarrior".   However searching the risk database at McAfee doesnt find it and googling shows that MalWarrior is actually a rogue anti-spyware application.  I cannot quite see how any of my applications can be confused with an antispyware application (rogue or otherwise)

Peter

6

General Software Discussion / Re: False Positive on Software (Generic.Dx) by McAfee Today: McAfee Response and Fix

« on: April 11, 2008, 04:35 AM »

My software has been hit again by this.  3 completely separate apps have been wiped from end-users PCs without a by-your-leave.

This happened a month ago and we were just recovering from the damage that had done.   It has now happened again.   McAfee just say "it will be fixed in the next DAT" but that quite frankly is not good enough

I write software for the healthcare industry and many end-users have managed AV solutions so they cannot add exclusions themselves.

This has done incalculable damage to my companies reputation (not to mention my blood pressure)

Peter

7

General Software Discussion / Re: False Positive on Software (Generic.Dx) by McAfee Today: McAfee Response and Fix

« on: March 17, 2008, 11:19 AM »

The problem is that many of my customers have managed AV solutions and they have no options for restoring files or modifying the behaviour of the scanner themselves.

Peter

8

General Software Discussion / Re: False Positive on Software (Generic.Dx) by McAfee Today: McAfee Response and Fix

« on: March 17, 2008, 07:08 AM »

This has hit me big-time!

Last Wednesday,  while on holiday,  I started getting notifications that McAfee had been deleting my applications (3 of them) and I had very unhappy customers.   

OK - McAfee have released a new DAT file that has "fixed" the problem but not the damage that has been done.  I supply software to the rather sensitive healthcare industry and although I immediately released a statement explaining what had happened, I dread to think what this has done to my reputation (no smoke without fire etc).  This is compounded by the fact that we have just launched a marketing campaign aimed at a new group of potential customers.

On top of this is the support load of getting all our customers back up and running again.

The whole episode has made me absolutely livid and has spoilt what should have been a relaxing skiing holiday.

Has anyone ever succeeded in getting any form of legal compensation in these circumstances?  I am sure that the McAfee EULA is watertight in respect of their responsibility to their end users but the way this has affected me and the implication that my software is a Trojan seems much like defamation.

Any lawyers out there?

Peter