Thousands Of Computers Attacked By MalwareBytes Monday
Shane Blume / 12 years ago
Do you use Malwarebytes? If so you are among millions of customers of the Anti-Malware software distributor. Many of us monitor and repair our own computers, and we use largely known companies to keep our computers safe and secure. Unfortunately, every once in awhile there is a glitch which causes major issues for our computers, such as how Malwarebytes released an update which made our computers think that Windows was attacking Windows! Even though you might think that the Windows operating system is a virus, or acts like a virus from time to time, we don’t want Malwarebytes or any other software for that matter to delete our windows. The update did just that.
On April 15 at approximately 3 P.M. (PDT) Malwarebytes was updated, this update disabled thousands of computers within just a few minutes. Though the issue was caught in the initial few minutes of the release the damage had already been done. A simple definitions update for Malwarebytes turned into a fatal application for your computer, attacking .exe and .dll files alike thinking that nearly all of the files in your computer were viruses. Malwarebytes acted swiftly in working to disable the update and removing it from their servers. Unfortunately the damage had already been done. And they have apologised for their mistake, taking the blame.
“I want to offer my sincere apology to our millions of customers and free users. I started this company because I thought everyone was entitled to malware-free computing. We acted overzealously in that mission and realize far superior procedures around updating are needed. More was expected of us, and we failed.” CEO Marcin Kleczynski posted on the official Malwarebytes forum
Thousands of computers being affected by this simple release is really devastating, we can only hope that Malwarebytes will test out the updates more thoroughly in the future. Of course we understand that they may have missed this issue, by trying to be the best anti-malware software out there, having the most current and up to date definitions available.
If you have been affected by the update, and you have not been able to fix your computer just yet, you can find repair information, and a tool HERE.
How do you keep your computer safe and secure, do you use a combination of Malwarebytes and an anti-virus software? Let us know in the comments below.
