“About a third of anti-malware products tested by Virus Bulletin failed to secure Windows Vista Business Edition SP2 with several “crumbling” under the pressure of a heavy attack.

Of the 54 products tested by the vendor, 19 failed to reach the standard required for VB100 certification, the latest Virus Bulletin report said.

The VB100 tests assessed anti-malware products against a test set from the WildList – a list of viruses known to be circulating on computers that is maintained by a group of anti-virus researchers.

Products had to detect 100 percent of the malware contained in the WildList test set and “not generate any false alarms when scanning a set of clean files” to achieve VB100 certification.

Some of the products tested by Virus Bulletin in August produced false alarms on clean files from the likes of Corel, Roxio and Adobe.”

Some of those that failed the test were BitDefender, Lavasoft Total Security, McAfee Total Protection, McAfee, CA Consumer, CA Business and GDATA. Just to name a few.

How does this affect you? Tell us your thoughts. Has your tool been listed as failing this test? Share your feelings. View this post in our support forum also.

Stay in touch – Twitter, Facebook.

Limewire is a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) client for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other operating systems. However it is the peer-to-peer you have to question with it’s security and malware problems. Then add AVG in to that mixture of questions as to why they want a slice of the pie.

At this point you may be wondering what I am talking about. Well quote this:

“AVG Technologies, developers of the world’s most popular free anti-virus software, today announced that LimeWire LLC has licensed the AVG Anti-Virus SDK engine and has integrated the anti-virus/ anti-spyware protection into LimeWire Pro, its premium file sharing software. Through this partnership, all files will be scanned before LimeWire Pro will allow them to play or execute on an end user’s computer, which prevents infected files from harming machines. LimeWire Pro users will see the “Protected by AVG” assurance whenever a downloaded file is safely scanned and cleaned.” – AVG and LimeWire Secure World’s Largest Peer-to-Peer Network.

This may well be old news for some as the above press release was published last month. And to an extent has gone under the radar. However it is still significant and worthwhile for a mention.

Over the years peer-to-peer software has had it’s problems and been branded as unsafe by ourselves and experts of the same industry. For valid reasons. We even have our own P2P programs policy in the support forums because of it. And the service offered by AVG only stretches to the paid versions of Limewire.

What percentage of Limewire users have the free version and what percentage have the paid?

What percentage overall that uses this type of software have Limewire compared to others?

P2P will still remain unsafe whatever steps companies make. Individuals will always try and exploit it to push their malware onto computers with their methods. And we have not tested the inclusion of AVG with Limewire Pro. Nor will we in the future. The jury will remain out on this situation. However we believe it is a bad move by AVG.

One final thought. Who will benefit from this partnership? Limewire or AVG? And anyone remember Ewido Anti-Spyware?

Got an opinion about the above? Then share it here. All comments and thoughts are welcomed.

“This update caused BitDefender to flag Windows system files and BitDefender files as the Trojan.Fakealert.5 infection. Depending on a users action settings for when a virus is found, this has led to numerous Windows system files being added to the BitDefender quarantine. When this happens, these computers are not be able to boot into Windows.”

A mammoth 67 page forum topic at the BitDefender forums shows some of the frustrations of the problem. Not long after, Bit Defender released the following:

“Today (morning PST) we had an update for 64-bit systems (available on our servers between 8 AM and 11 30 AM PST) that caused multiple Windows and BitDefender files to be quarantined. We are creating a patch that will restore all quarantined files. The patch will be available shortly. We apologize for this error and we will work to prevent this from occurring again in the future.

BitDefender trojan alert update issue: BitDefender has released an alternative solution for users that are able to boot their systems. The details are available here http://www.bitdefender.com/site/KnowledgeBase/consumer/#638 . The solution for users that are not able to boot their system will be available shortly. Thanks for your understanding.

We would like to provide you with a current update regarding the Trojan.FakeAlert.5 issue:

Today BitDefender products running on Windows 64-bit systems experienced problems caused by a faulty update. Multiple BitDefender and Windows files have been incorrectly detected as Trojan.FakeAlert.5 and have been moved to quarantine. Based on the information we have, only .exe, .dll and other binary files have been quarantined (no pictures or documents). Consequently, on some systems BitDefender did not run anymore, applications did not work and/or Windows did not start on those systems.”

You can read that press release in full here – Trojan.FakeAlert.5 Update issue.

If you have been affected by this and require advice on how to resolve it, we offer free support on a range of problems. Visit our support forums and navigate to the correct subforum.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it here.

SCars has been a long project for awhile now and it’s at that stage where we feel comfortable that it can be released to the general public.

What is SCars? To quote the SCars home page:

“SCars is a program designed to aid users in performing the regular computer maintenance tasks that should be undertaken to keep their computer working efficiently. Tasks such as updating Windows and security software, and cleaning temporary files are important to a computer’s health. In addition, SCars can be used to remind users of whatever they choose as it has the capability for users to create ‘custom’ reminders for any purpose.”

For a long time now, we have been developing this application which started from a small idea from some of our staff behind the scenes. At the time we were discussing overhauling our support forums. And from somewhere, it sparked a conversation about creating a tool. So that we can assist computer users not only via our website, but on their actual computer when they’re offline or online after we have assisted them. That was the start of a project which we then dubbed, Project X.

Overview

• Built-in computer Security and Maintenance reminders – all customizable
• Custom reminders for any purpose
• Automatic or manual updating available
• Multiple languages supported
• Full help and support available (more info)

For a run-down of the above visit the Features page.

We don’t expect at this stage to have a Pro version for which you pay for. As it stands it is a freeware application to recommend to anyone which will assist in maintaining a computer. All those who contribute, are volunteers. They have either been in a position themselves where they got infected and seeked help on similar websites like our own. So they know where most users come from. That is vital to the development of SCars to maintain it’s functions as it’s designed for.

Although this release is stable, we have not yet fully implemented all features. So for the first public version, it will be a Beta. We do want to remind anyone using it in the Beta version that testing will be at your own risk.

At this stage we’d like to thank everyone who has worked hard on SCars. You can see who has contributed on the SCars pages (more here). And should you have an opinion, chat about it in our forum.

Links of Interest:

SCars Home Pages

SCars Support Forum

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Also, on a side point away from our weekly round-up, our application (formally codename ProjectX) SCars, is in full swing and several components are finished. There is no predicted release date, but we will hopefully provide a run down of what we’re actually programming soon. We are after a few graphic designers to help us with graphics on the application. Please contact me, AndyAtHull, via my forum account for details. Let us crack on.

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The beta version of Microsoft Relevant Products/Services’s security Relevant Products/Services software is a hit. The software giant announced Wednesday on its Web site that it had reached the U.S. limit on downloads for Microsoft Security Essentials — which was only made available Tuesday.

The general release of the free software is expected this fall.

“Alert!” said a posting on the Web page for the security software. “Thank you for your interest in joining the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta. We are not accepting additional participants at this time. Please check back at a later date for possible additional availability.”

Limit Reached Within 24 Hours

The beta became available Tuesday morning and reached the limit for the U.S. and Israel within twenty-four hours. Microsoft had said it would allow 75,000 downloads for users in the U.S., Israel and Brazil.

According to news reports Relevant Products/Services, the limit for the U.S. and Israel was reached at about 5 a.m. PDT Wednesday. The limit of 20,000 downloads for Brazilian users hadn’t been reached, meaning 55,000 downloads were reserved for U.S. and Israel. – Source: Data Storage Today

Yikes! Let’s wait and see if Microsoft can specialize in this area. For me, decidated companies and organisations will always remain in a better position to deal with security as it’s their bread and butter. Chat about it here in full.

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A day later and Symantec respond:

I wanted to let you know that we’ve been in touch with Bill Pytlovany and have reached out to the original customer who called support.

Symantec does not classify WinPatrol as a threat, and we’re actively investigating this customer’s experience to learn more about why the support agent provided incorrect information and to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Best,

Noah Edwardsen
Symantec

The comment was left over at Security Garden. I welcome this response. Let’s lay this to rest and work with each other so situations like this can be prevented rather than caused. Chat about the situation in our forum.

Indeed strong words to use, but sometimes that is required to express a point. Our expert and Microsoft MVP Corrine blogged in February about the good, the bad and the ugly regarding Symantec. This included the partnership with IAC/Ask. One partnership which appears to be infectious to many legit companies in the web today.

Today I sit here and to inform you about another twist in the Symantec saga.

Symantec Support says Winpatrol is a virus. Yes, you read that correctly.

Bits from Bill – “This week I was surprised to hear that a Symantec support rep actually told a customer that WinPatrol was a virus and during a remote assistance phone call they deleted WinPatrol from their system.”

And for all of that they charged the victim $99. To put it into context. WinPatrol PLUS costs less than that and the standard version is free. To add, WinPatrol is probably, if not already, the best utility to have on a computer to assist with many problems we face. We even have an un-official support forum for it. And we’re not the only one with such a forum.

I know we’re in a tough economic times and perhaps the partnership with companies is understandable to balance the books. What isn’t acceptable is insisting WinPatrol is a virus, removing it and then charging for a simple task that should not have been done in the first place.

How are support staff at Symantec regulated and chosen? Because providing support like this staff member did shows to be poor and reflects on the company overall.

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