Newsletter Archives

• LangaList: How do you detect if your computer has a boot sector virus?

  Posted on November 20, 2019 at 07:44 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Another short, simple, down-to-earth article from Fred Langa.

  If you aren’t hooked up to Fred’s free post notification system, you’re missing a lot!

  Antivirus Apps LangaList, virus detection

• Born: Microsoft incorrectly signed the MSRT update that’s been bouncing around. It’s fixed now.

  Posted on November 14, 2019 at 13:01 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  News on that infuriating MSRT update bug. If you recall, the version of KB 890830 that arrived on Patch Tuesday was all over the map. As I said in Computerworld:

  There are hundreds of reports online of people who found that the MSRT installer threw an 800B0109 and wouldn’t install; or installed but then reinstalled on reboot; showed up multiple times in the Installed Updates list; didn’t show up in the Installed Updates list in spite of running; and several variations on those themes.

  I also said that the bad patch was fixed on Tuesday night – but, at least for some people, it wasn’t.

  Now comes word from Günter Born about the root cause of the problem:

  Microsoft made a mistake signing the update package in question… KB 890830 is no longer available via Windows Update… Microsoft has updated the package (in the Update Catalog) for Windows 7 and Server 2008/r2 and replaced the faulty certificate.

  He reports that the newly updated (but not yet pushed) version installs correctly. (Actually, I should say “runs correctly,” because the MSRT programs just run, they don’t install anything.)

  UPDATE: @Speccy has observed that the problem isn’t with the certificate, but with our old friend the SHA-2 signing problem with Win7 patches. Looks like he’s right. Read more here.

  Antivirus Apps, Windows Patches/Security November 2019 Black Tuesday

• Malwarebytes gets a full version bump

  Posted on November 5, 2019 at 02:56 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  There’s a new version of Malwarebytes and it seems pretty spiffy.

  See the detailed review from Lawrence Abrams at BleepingComputer:

  New scanning engine, a new user interface, threat statistics and more. If you wish to upgrade to this new version you will need to download the installer directly from Malwarebytes site… With this release, Malwarebytes considers itself an antivirus replacement and will now register itself with the Windows Security settings as the primary antivirus solution on the computer.

  Now available at OlderGeeks.com.

  Antivirus Apps Malwarebytes

• Symantec Endpoint Protection dies again

  Posted on October 24, 2019 at 11:13 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  What’s with these folks at Symantec?

  Catalin Cimpanu reports in ZDNet:

  For the fourth time in three months, a Symantec security product is crashing user apps, and this time it’s the latest Chrome release, v78, which rolled out earlier this week, on Tuesday, October 22… According to the antivirus maker, the issues are only affecting SEP 14 users on Windows 10 RS1 [I think he's referring to Redstone 1, which probably means any recent version of Win10 -WL], Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2016 operating systems. Symantec users on other OS versions can fix this by updating to the latest SEP 14.2 release…

  The issue of SEP crashing Chrome 78 browsers should have not surprised Symantec staff, who received early warnings about this more than three months ago, according to a bug report filed in early August while Chrome 78 was still in testing in the Canary channel.

  Remember how Symantec didn’t figure out how to work with the revised SHA-2 update signing requirement for Windows 7?

  https://twitter.com/campuscodi/status/1187390974827417601

  Antivirus Apps Symantec Endpoint Protection

• Symantec Endpoint Protection throwing blue screens

  Posted on October 15, 2019 at 09:29 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Not sure what’s causing the problems (maybe a buggy update to Symantec?) but I’m seeing complaints all over about Symantec Endpoint Protection throwing bluescreens.

  A friend of mine wrote and said that they’re seeing bluescreens on most of their systems:

  It’s only if we have the Proactive threat protection I think?

  Symantec has posted an alert:

  Endpoint Protection Client gets a Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) BAD_POOL_CALLER (c2) or KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION (13A)

  When run LiveUpdate, Endpoint Protection Client gets a Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) indicates IDSvix86.sys/IDSvia64.sys is the cause of the exception BAD_POOL_CALLER (c2) or KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION (13A).

  When BSOD happens, Intrusion Prevention signature version is 2019/10/14 r61.

  Work around:

  Symantec released Intrusion Prevention signature version 2019/10/14 r62.

  Please run LiveUpdate again to download latest Intrusion Prevention signature 2019/10/14 r62, or rollback to an earlier known good content revision to prevent the BSOD situation. Please check How to Backdate Virus Definitions in Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager in details to roll back definitions.

  Any idea if my friend is right?

  Antivirus Apps Symantec bluescreen

• How to block malware with Windows’ built-in security

  Posted on September 9, 2019 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  SECURITY

  By Lance Whitney

  For years, it seems as though Microsoft gave little thought to malware protection. But the latest tools in Win10 are robust and comprehensive.

  These days, malware comes in many forms: viruses, rootkits, ransomware, phishing, and others. More than ever, you need to ensure your personal computer is protected. Until recently, your best bet was to use a full-time, third-party anti-malware product. But if you’re running a current version of Windows 10, the tools built into the OS are now probably all you need.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.32.0 (2019-09-09).

  Antivirus Apps Anti-malware, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Windows 10, Windows Defender
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