NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Unacceptable Incompetency: Microsoft Accidentally Deletes Google's Chrome Browser from Users' PCs
Unacceptable Incompetency: Microsoft Accidentally
Deletes Google's Chrome Browser from Users' PCs
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000900.html
Microsoft now claims that about 3000 users were impacted when their
"Security Essentials" antivirus package went berserk and incorrectly
flagged as a virus -- and in many cases deleted -- Google's Chrome Web
browser from users' systems today ( http://j.mp/o0y4zW [PCWorld] ).
Jokes aside about Microsoft deploying a new weapon to boost its own
Internet Explorer in the "browser wars," this event could have been
much worse, should never have been this bad, and is a clear warning
not just to Microsoft, but to the entire computing industry.
Security Essentials is a free package that Microsoft very heavily
promotes and encourages users to install -- including within the
normal Windows Update automated environment. It's straightforward to
imagine how far more users could have been easily impacted by this
event. Even worse, picture the consequences if other critical
elements of PC's had been targeted in error this way, perhaps even
making booting difficult or impossible.
There is no imaginable, reasonable excuse for how Microsoft could have
screwed up so badly today. Even if a faulty virus signature was in
their database, it would not have required more than a few obvious,
rudimentary additional checks to indicate that a major software
package was involved that should not be subjected to recommended or
automated deletion in what can only be described as a cavalier manner.
Where were the sanity checks? Why weren't Microsoft personnel alerted
to a nonsensical virus hit before Security Essentials was permitted to
run wild deleting Chrome from trusting Microsoft customers?
This wasn't a rocket science situation, and it calls into question the
totality of Microsoft's antivirus technology and associated
management.
Is Microsoft the only antivirus vendor who could make this kind of
major mistake? We'd be foolish in the extreme to make such an
assumption.
This was a shot across the bow that could have been a disaster.
We had better take notice. Right now.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com