McAfee Slams Windows XP

McAfee anti-virus users running Windows XP with service pack 3 may have been shocked to see their systems repeatedly rebooting or coming up with the dreaded blue screen yesterday. McAfee engineers identified a new threat and crafted an update released Wednesday afternoon. The new definitions recognized a core Windows system file, svchost.exe, as a threat bringing normal operations to a halt.

After reports of from irate customers reached McAfee they pulled the update. Shortly thereafter they posted a SuperDat tool on the McAfee Knowledge Base to help those afflicted restore their systems. It appears that, even though you may have problems starting your system normally, you will be able to start in safe mode and apply the fix.

Not all McAfee customers running Windows XP were plagued by the malady. Apparently, only users of the Enterprise edition of their anti-virus program were affected. And among those users only when a feature called "Scan Process Enable" was activated did the attack on the svchost.exe file occur.