Microsoft: Symantec software is spyware

Date: February 14, 2006
Source: InformationWeek
By: Gregg Keizer

The preview of Microsoft's Windows AntiSpyware wrongly fingered two Symantec enterprise anti-virus products as password-stealing programs last week. If users followed Microsoft's recommendation and removed the offending Registry key, the Symantec software turned into so much digital junk.

Microsoft has corrected the false flagging, it said Monday. Symantec, meanwhile, announced that it had crafted a free tool to repair damaged installations of its Symantec AntiVirus (SAV) Corporate Edition and Symantec Client Security (SCS).

The problem stemmed from a Windows AntiSpyware Beta 1 update late Thursday, Feb. 9, dubbed "5805, which incorrectly identified a registry key for SAV and SCS as belonging to a password-stealing keylogger known as PWS.Bancos.a, which harks back to 2003.

Microsoft's anti-spyware program prompted users to remove the misidentified registry key; if they did, SAV and SCS stopped working.

"Once this issue was discovered, Microsoft quickly released a new signature set (5807) to remove this false positive," said a Microsoft spokesman Monday. "Both companies are working jointly together to identify the number of affected customers, which we believe to be very limited."
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