Reports: Microsoft AV Erasing Google Chrome
Reports: Microsoft AV Erasing Google Chrome
Posted 09/30/2011 at 10:55am
| by Brad Chacos
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Mighty funny timing, Microsoft. Just yesterday, we reported that Google’s Chrome browser was threatening to overtake Firefox in the coming months thanks to soaring usage rates caused, in large part, by FF and IE defectors. Then, this morning, Internet forums are awash with rage because a new update to Microsoft’s Security Essentials and ForeFront AV software began calling Chrome a Trojan and erasing it from users machines. Coincidence? Yeah, it probably is. But that still doesn’t change the fact that users are pissed.
Both ZDNet and The Register are reporting that they’ve received numerous complaints about the critical false positive. The AV programs are identifying Chrome as part of the ZeuS Trojan, and users who try to reinstall the browser are finding that the antivirus program won’t let them, citing “PWS:Win32/Zbot” as a severe threat. Register readers are reporting that the beta version of Chrome isn’t affected, nor are browsers that are configured to not send Google any information. Nobody’s saying anything official at the moment – both Google and Microsoft have been mum on the matter.
So, has any of you been affected by the bug? Chime in with your experiences in the comments! I've got Chrome and MSE installed on my laptop, and nothing fishy has gone on yet.
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brendanprich@gm...
October 02, 2011 at 4:44am
m so glad I came across this post from you guys today. I HAVE SERIOUSLY been affected.I use chrome as my main browser and I also use MSE and of course I have all of the other browsers at my disposal, as well as multiple options for malware removal.Out of the blue, a few days ago, I went to open another tab in chrome, and...... nothing.Closed out chrome, killed processes etc.. reopened chrome and......nothing again. The window would open but it was wack in the sense that it looked as if it were searching in cache but couldnt connect to the net. Anyway long story short things started getting worse from there as I was trying to figure out and fix,I uninstalled and re-installed chrome, as well as other drivers updates programs etc. that had been recently installed and nothing ,I blew through multiple system restores, recovery disk re-boots etc.etc.etc. It was only getting worse and got to the point were I was unable to boot past the "starting windows" screen, my rig kept resetting claiming some kind of memory dump It somehow corrupted my RAID 1 NAS backup as well. Somehow I was able to load into a separate user account, and have been running a sandobxed version of firefox, which is the only thing working worth a damn right now. I am able to access all of my files luckily and when I was able to boot I actually signed up for Carbonite in desperation yesterday evening and have been uploading all my precious files, including 2 years worth of slide scanning and restoration from a project I have been working on, to catalog and save all of my grandparents old film and photographs, some dating back to the late 1930's! I am talking abiout over 20,000 images from film restored and scanned by hand. I have been freaking out. I was planning on doing a complete OS re-install after the backup. Any Suggestions???
Wingzero_x
October 01, 2011 at 8:05pm
No, but I once ran a anti-virus scan and it uninstalled Windows! XD
Wingzero_x
October 01, 2011 at 8:01pm
No, but I once ran a anti-virus scan and it uninstalled Windows! XD
Wingzero_x
October 01, 2011 at 8:00pm
No, but I once ran a anti-virus scan and it uninstalled Windows! XD
andrewc513
October 01, 2011 at 4:33pm
I ran into this problem on 2 different laptops on my work bench at the exact same time at work. I was wondering what the hell was up. It popped up a (obviously, a false positive) warning for win32:ZBot on both machines upon trying to open Chrome, then Chrome was uninstalled.
JD Harrison
October 01, 2011 at 8:23am
We are using MS Sec Essentials... Our 64-bit Windows 7 machines weren't affected. It affected our 32-bit Windows 7 Laptop... identified it as a serious threat... reinstalled Chrome and got the serious threat message again... left it until today to reinstall after I checked it out more.
Jozef1977
October 01, 2011 at 7:48am
Never had a problem on my rig, Win7 64bit, MSE all up to date. Still using Chrome
sgo823
September 30, 2011 at 7:33pm
I'm reading this in Chrome, so I guess I'm not affected. Win7 Home Premium 64bit.
noobstix
September 30, 2011 at 4:15pm
When I previously used Chrome, MSE had never flagged it as a false positive. But that was about 3 months ago (maybe more). I guess I'm lucky that I'm not using Chrome at the moment or this probabl would've happened to me.
Adam Wolfe
September 30, 2011 at 2:11pm
Last time I used Chrome, I ended up with a nasty virus and had to format. Ever since I switched to the more secure browser Firefox, I've been virus/trojan free for almost 2 years. I'm not surprised Chrome is getting heat as a threat itself.
Biovision
September 30, 2011 at 1:05pm
MSE trashed Chrome on my XP machine....reinstalled no probems everything still there even restored pages that were open
I think this is some aggression from MS
Brdn666
September 30, 2011 at 5:42pm
I seriously doubt that this was intentional. Why would MS purposely make their users unhappy? For some cheap shot at Google? I think not.
dilbert719
September 30, 2011 at 12:59pm
Win7 Enterprise 64-bit, and MSE wiped my Chrome install, too. I was able to reinstall with no problems, and all my bookmarks, etc. are still there.
ehasoon
September 30, 2011 at 12:08pm
Lost Chrome but thankfully I have everything backed up. I'll have to see if my 64-bit machine at home was affected.
nuclearbastard
September 30, 2011 at 11:20am
I blogged about this earlier today. Microsoft acknowledged that it was a false positive, and they released a new definitions pack for MSE to resolve the issue. http://bea.fngeek.com/?p=381
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