Webroot provides security software for home and business users, and like most antivirus applications, the company’s software can identify and quarantine or delete potentially malicious files.

Unfortunately on April 24th, a Webroot update mistakenly flagged hundreds of Windows system files as malware… causing many computers to stop working.

The company says the bad virus definitions were only live for a brief time, but that was long enough to do a lot of damage. And while Webroot has posted instructions that should help some home users and business customers undo the damage, many users in the Webroot community forum say the instructions don’t work for them.

In a lot of ways, this seems like the worst-case scenario for an antivirus software company. I mean, it’s bad enough that sometimes just about any security software might fail to protect you from malware (because sometimes undisclosed vulnerabilities are exploited before anti-malware companies can develop and roll out updates to protect you). But this is sort of like when you’re body’s immune system turns against you: the software that was supposed to keep you safe is what’s actually causing the damage.

It’s unclear at this point what caused the false positives, but I suppose if there’s a silver lining, it’s that Webroot says it “has not been breached and customers are not at risk.” and that “legitimate malicious files are being identified and blocked as normal.”

via The Register and Ars Technica

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,545 other subscribers

5 replies on “Whoops: Antivirus software Webroot bricks PCs by deleting Windows system files”

  1. Webroot destroyed a bunch of computers. I think they should be responsible for repairing or replacing them. And I still don’t think that’s enough because the users will be without a PC for some time.

  2. Well, at least those computers that will not boot are 100% protected from acquiring a virus. 😉

      1. Ha, that’s funny! This is a huuuuuuuge PR boost for them. No doubt. Looking at their traffic and SEO etc…this ought to help them quite a bit. On a side note…I’m still wondering if they purposefully did this out of a desperate reach for publicity. It’s difficult to get prime websites to link to you in the AV industry without a lot of $ – wouldn’t suprirse me if this was just a quick one-off to get some links from powerful websites.

Comments are closed.