Anti-virus software update crashes PCs in China
Last Updated: Thursday, May 24, 2007 | 12:49 PM ET
CBC News
A faulty update to anti-virus software has paralyzed computers throughout China since last Friday, according to reports Thursday.
Symantec Corp. apologized on its China website after an automatic update to a Chinese version of its Norton line of anti-virus software caused an error which prevented some users from restarting their computers.
The update of the Norton software mistakenly identified two critical files of Microsoft Corp's XP operating system - "netapi32.dll" and "lsasrv.dll" - as malicious codes and deleted them, preventing users from restarting their computers or even reinstalling their operating system.
How many users were affected remains unclear, though an earlier report from the Xinhua News Agency said millions of computer systems collapsed as a result of the error, though other reports have put the number in the tens of thousands.
The China Daily News quotes a local anti-virus software maker, Rising Corp. Ltd., which said more than 7,000 Norton users had contacted them about the problem. Symantec China has not given an estimate of the number of customers affected.
A Symantec representative told the China Daily News the company hadn't considered whether to compensate customers who downloaded the software.
"We are now focusing on helping our clients restart their computers, and will consider other issues once that work is finished," said Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec's security response team.
Symantec sent a fix for the update an hour later, the company said. The company's China website said customers can fix the problem by initiating another update of their software, but only if they have not restarted their PCs after installing the flawed update.
The company also outlined a procedure for replacing the deleted files with copies stored on the Windows XP installation CD and provided a hotline for further customer complaints.
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