News BitDefender update wipes Windows

I wasn't questioning the links I'm just wary about getting help from someone claiming to be from an anti-virus company.

He seems genuine enough I'm just an extremely cautious person

 

i am sure there will be holes in unix/linux based os's, its just they havent been found or exploited yet

 

With you average user being conditioned on windows that they have to click allow to work, I don't see Joe Bloggs doing anything different on *nix he'll just be conditioned that he has to enter a password to allow programs to run and will do the same when a virus prompts.

 

I don't think you 'get it'.
The reason Windows is constantly being pumped is due to the fact most users run as admins and simply double-clicking specific types of files gives those files free reign to modify anything it likes on the system.

The reason Macs and linux are more secure is that they dont run users as admins as default.
So you can double-click your nasty file but unless you type in your root password, its severely limited in what it can do.

Of course the argument of a much smaller target pool making nix/mac less appealing as a target is a strong one, but I do believe as their userbases get larger (which I think will happen faster and faster) they will remain more resilient than windows ever will be.

Time will tell I guess...

 

If I wrote AV. I would whitelist all Windows system files, and files required for my AV to work properly.

Just a suggestion.

 

thats the problem, virus' sometimes hijack legit windows files so your whitelist would be a fail

 

What's a virus?

***continues working on his unix box***

 

If i were a bad guy i would use that to my advantage

 

enough testing? you mean they didnt scan a single infected and non infected 64bit windows system before releasing this update? thats too much testing?... apparently they need to do more.

 

To hell with your company, Matt. The bug hit me on Saturday afternoon, and after a while I couldn't launch any web browser and BD stopped working. In the end I reinstalled my Windows installation, and I am still not done with it.

To hell with your company and your ****ed up quality assurance.

 

Looks like you don't have a clue of Win7. Even if d-clicking some setup program, Win7 will ask you whether it is allowed to change system files if it tries to (unless you have completely turned off UAC). So stuff it, fanboy.

 

No, Matt is actually from Bit Defender in the UK.

I must say, they are being very proactive about replying and informing - so kudos!

 

Being proactive is good, but I am at a loss for words when it comes to their product identifying it's own files as potentially harboring viruses. Seriously?? Did not one tester scan their computer with the software before releasing this product? They definitely need to improve their QA/Release process.

 

Perhaps not even 1 tester rebooted.

 

I fell foul to this stupid little update. At first I thought I had a bad virus infection, as it was finding viruses in some program files folders. But then it just started quarantining the whole of my program files folder and then proceeded to start on my system 32 folder. Luckily I had a system restore from a few hours before, so I used that, then booted to safe mode to remove bit defender before it could do it again.

But seriously, these sorts of mistakes shouldn't happen. If i didn't have a recent system restore id be buggered.

 

Agree we all make mistakes it how you handle them that shows your true colours.

 

But you can turn it off, and people DO turn it off, because they can and because they think that their time is too precious to click an extra button. Vista had UAC right, it was just a big change after their XP seive. With Windows 7 they've dumbed it down so much it is almost meaningless.

Unless it asks for your password, you are not in a user account and are in some weird quasi admin account, so airchie is right.

 

Hi everyone,

Again, I can only apologise for the problems people have experienced. The update in question was isolated to 64-bit OS and was withdrawn shortly after being issued, which meant very few users were affected.

Anyone still having problems can get support here -

http://www.bitdefender.com/site/KnowledgeBase/consumer/#638

Please feel free to let me know here if this does not fix things for you.

Best,

Matt Hicks
BitDefender UK

 

LMAO! In a good mood today are we?

I agree.
If it had hit me I too would be fuming but nothing is infallable.
I dare say your average BD user has been saved numerous times from infections etc so arguably they are allowed one slip up?
Providing they learn from it and improve their working practices it hasn't been a complete waste of time.

 

People are idiots, and click everything you tell them to click to watch their precious pr0n. Most of them don't even read what they click, I actually once made a popup with several lines of text saying that "your PC will be infected and all your details will be submitted to online databases." 96% of people (from about 45.000) clicked it.
And gavomatic57, UAC can be avoided by adding ONE short line of code to your virus. Well, four actually (one for each system - Vista and 7, x86 and x64 versions), I've never seen a virus to trigger UAC, besides very noobish ones.