AVG slaps Trojan label on Adobe Flash

[Osiris]

AVG slaps Trojan label on Adobe Flash

AVG, the popular anti-virus package, has falsely identified Adobe Flash as potentially malicious. The snafu comes just days after AVG slapped a bogus Trojan warning on a core Windows component.
Users on AVG forums complained on Friday that Adobe Flash was detected by AVG's scanner as malicious, following a recent update. The gaffe follows an even more glaring screw-up when user32.dll, a core Windows component, was identified as a banking Trojan following a signature update issued on Sunday. Users who followed AVG's advise and deleted the "harmful file" were left with systems that either failed to boot or went into a continuous reboot cycle. Users of both AVG 7.5 and 8 (free and full-feature editions) were affected.
Less than a month ago AVG identified CheckPoint's Zone Alarm as a Trojan.
False alarms by anti-virus scanners are a well-known Achilles heel. Everybody who's anybody has problems with false alarms from time to time but to have three such problems in less than a month is difficult to defend.
Quizzed on the latest issue AVG said it had nothing to add to a statement issued on Thursday, before the Flash problem blew up, offering users affected by the Windows component snafu a free one-year license or license extension. "AVG Technologies apologizes again for the inconvenience caused to our customers and wishes to assure our users worldwide that the company is actively putting new processes in place to avoid similar occurrences in the future," it said.
It's scarcely believable but a day later there's another problem of the same type.
Everybody at the Czech-based firm, particularly those in its quality assurance unit, ought to be be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
We've liked AVG as a firm, and a software package for years, but its serial false alarm problems shake this confidence, even without taking into account the fake traffic spew problems last summer. We'd offer you an image of AVG in a dunce's cap but our graphics artist is already at the pub. As an alternative we offer you this fine selection of football own goals (below) to make much the same point

AVG slaps Trojan label on Adobe Flash ? The Register

 

[eyeCpc]

False alarms are a part of lfe in the pc world as a rule. When running an older version of Lavasoft's Ad-Aware that saw the Microsoft Intellipoint exe file "IPoint.exe" as a threat! That just happens to be the main executable for MS optical mice and optical tracball mice as well.

Grisoft's latest AVG 8.0 has been re-enabled right after the last folly last weekend effecting the user32.dll file mainly seen with apparently certain XP systems only while nothing here either XP or Vista has been effected. This will likely turn out to be another false alarm since the only problem seen with AVG all week is likely Grisoft's own investigation since the "failed to connect to server" message appears for AVG while no problems are seen with Spyware Terminator's online automatic check for updates.

Meanwhile I will keep you posted if anything should come up since I have been following the differing reports on bugs were none have been seen here through all this.

 

[KSoD]

This is getting sad. First it was a critical Windows file. Now Adobe Flash.

While i understand that false positives happen. This is getting out of control. AVG killed systems with the Windows False alarm. Now they are blocking flash which many sites use.

Sorry to say but they need to get things straight first before they put out new definations. When i use Avast i had only 1 false alarm. That was upon upgrade from version 4.7 to 4.8 and that was not even a serious false alarm. It was just a simple file which could have easily been mistaken cause it was used in Plus! Live for WLM.

AVG is not looking like a good free solution right now.

 

[eyeCpc]

At this point when first starting the system up I keep the "failed to connect to server" popup notification for AVG. That indicates Grisoft has temporarily unplugged things at their end apparently.

 

[KSoD]

I got that as well. Good to see they are trying to fix it.

 

[eyeCpc]

With this stuff being published on the web one after another I imagine they would act rather fast to look into any problems. Otherwise things like this will hurt their rep in general.

You should already know yourself that any software company can see an occasion goof up with any updates or newer version. Other then all this however that was the problem seen here through all of this making you wonder how much is actual or just someone making the mistake of allowing AVG to remove a false positive instead of looking to see what was being removed.

I made that one when being too quick on one occasion to click the remove button on Ad-Aware and then what...? the trackball suddenly saw a problem when the programmable buttons weren't working as they should? The main executable had been deleted seeing the need to reinstall Intellipoint all over again.

The articles seem to suggest that since someone made that error an article was rushed out to make an issue.

 

[Ethan_Kaizer]

To be honest, mistakes happen. I'd rather be over protected than under protected.

 

[KSoD]

To be honest, mistakes happen. I'd rather be over protected than under protected.

While i can understand this. When the mistakes cost your users their system. There has to be a line drawn. If Microsoft had released the update people would be in a uproar.

When you have your AV which is supposted to protect you tell you that a legit system file is bad and you delete it causing your system to break down with no chance of easy recovery it hurts.

It wouldnt matter if you were protected or not at that point. Cant boot then.

The flash thing while not as big cause some flash can be bad. The Windows file one was big. That one hurt them a bit. This is only compounding it for them cause now people are 2nd guessing using AVG.

 

[Poizen22]

KASPERKY FTW, or nod 32.

 

[eyeCpc]

Well I just got down rebooting back into Vista from a session in XP where both versions have 8.0 on and see only one problem that has been seen on numerous other occasions. That would be the "failed to connect to server" popup message.

No missing files following a full system scan in both versions following the automatic updates early this week. So I think there's some people were already having problems or something is shall we say: "down right fishy" about the whole thing?!

As as rule I've been running the vaious AVG builds since 2002-2003 and never had any problems come up with false alarms. I can't say that with other programs that will point at a legitimate MS or 3rd party software file for something installed however.

Besides Ad-Aware other programs have looked at the MS mouse file as well as main executables for other programs on. That's called the "exe factor" usually found in some type of email scanner looking for viruses while scanning attached files and files with the exe extension while running system scans.