McAfee To Users : Excel Is A Virus

[Micron]

Due to a botched update, some McAfee Anti-virus users have been informed that Microsoft Excel, a very popular spreadsheet program, is in-fact a virus.

For a while on Friday 10th March, Excel was marked as being the W95/CTX virus. The 'false-positive', as the problem is technically known, was due to an error in the definitions file McAfee sent to software users. Definitions files tell Anti-virus software what to look for, and often contains updates to respond to new virus threats.

McAfee Anti-virus dutifully quarantined and moved the files (including core executables such as excel.exe), rendering the Office software fairly useless. After receiving a number of reports from customers, McAfee recognised the problem and rolled out an updated definitions file just a few hours later.

McAfee is not alone in making false-positive gaffes. Last year, Microsoft's AntiSpyware software flagged Norton Anti-virus as being malicious software.

More (http://news.com.com/McAfee+update+exterminates+Excel/2100-1002_3-6048709.html?tag=nefd.hed)

[Neo, Knock, Knock]

Last year, Microsoft's AntiSpyware software flagged Norton Anti-virus as being malicious software.
From comments posted here, at least in the past, I would assume Microsoft was not entirely out of line. I guess it is 50% to 50% as to whether Norton Anti-virus is to be considered malicious software. Maybe Microsoft has hit the nail on the head, eh? :?: