Bonum Certa Men Certa

McAfee and Microsoft Cause Immeasurable Financial Damage

McAfee



Summary: Enormous scale of problems is seen following McAfee's error that deleted parts of Windows, which was not secure to begin with (and thus required McAfee's poisonous placebo)

2010 has so far been a terrible year for Internet Explorer (IE) security [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. A few days ago we showed that IE8's XSS filter is broken, so use of recent versions is no guarantee when it comes to security. Microsoft has not addressed this security problem just yet, but The Register says that Microsoft is working on it.

Microsoft will release an update intended to rid Internet Explorer 8 of a vulnerability that can enable serious security attacks against websites that are otherwise safe.


The Register also has this new article about the McAfee cockup which we mentioned earlier [1, 2].

Enterprise customers of a widely used McAfee anti-virus product were in a world of hurt on Wednesday after an update caused large swaths of their machines to become completely inoperable.


"McAfee false positive bricks enterprise PCs worldwide," says the headline and victims are so furious that a "McFail" campaign seems to have been spawned in Facebook. We have no sympathy for McAfee because this company has a Free software-hostile history which may include GPL violations and fraud. Besides that, McAfee is causing some huge damage to Windows users and to Microsoft as a whole. It is estimated that over a trillion dollars were spent/wasted due to damages caused by Microsoft's shoddy products. "Yet again," writes a reader to us, "no one mentions it's only Microsoft and no one mentions the dollar value lost to companies in fraud and revenue diverted into crap AV 'solutions'." We intend to press on with the "call out Windows" campaign which will certainly expand over time.

We've had our reader quote a new comment from Slashdot which says: "Is there a statistical breakdown as to Operating System platform the vast majority of this 'aggressive malware' runs on. Do the designers of such systems bare any responsibility for the current malware infestation. What is the dollar value lost to the economy in fraud, and revenue diverted into security solutions?"

More thought should be given to these important issues. Here is what Pogson had to say:

When I read reports of thousands of PCs disabled by anti-virus foul-ups, I rejoice that FLOSS is replacing XP around here. It is true that the user of XP or other versions of that other OS is helpless. He cannot run the PC without anti-virus software for the threats are too real and he cannot run the PC with anti-virus software because it is just malware in another form. The A-V we use around here is very intrusive and I will be glad to be done with it. It firewalls, filters and blocks applications not on approved list.


It is very counter productive and it costs a lot in terms of real progress. How did the world come to this and how can it get out of this hole?

"I have a nice perspective on what it means to be in charge of the most important project in the history of mankind."

--Microsoft project manager Brian Valentine



"Our products just aren't engineered for security."

--Brian Valentine (now doing damage inside Amazon)



Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October