Categories: SecurityWorkspace

Malwarebytes Update Kills Thousands Of Computers

An update from Windows malware removers Malwarebytes has caused thousands of computers across the world to crash, causing plenty of headaches for IT managers.

Problems emerged on Monday, late in the evening UK time, and even though the update was quickly pulled, Malwarebytes forums were flooded with complaints.

Malwarebytes says sorry

The company has been remarkably contrite, promising to do better in the future

“I want to offer my sincere apology to our millions of customers and free users,” company founder Marcin Kleczynski wrote in a blog post.

“I started this company because I thought everyone was entitled to malware-free computing. We acted overzealously in that mission and realise far superior procedures around updating are needed. More was expected of us, and we failed.

“Working day and night, we are commissioning several new resources to stop this from happening again. We are building more redundancy to check our researchers’ work and improving our peer review.”

The company has pushed out a tool to fix the issue, which the blog links to. Alternatively, users can go through the Malwarebytes support team.

Kleczynski said customers should be answered within an hour.

The gaffe comes just a matter of days after Microsoft shoved out an update that caused systems to crash and Kaspersky anti-virus to stop working.

What do you know about Internet security? Find out with our quiz!

Thomas Brewster

Tom Brewster is TechWeek Europe's Security Correspondent. He has also been named BT Information Security Journalist of the Year in 2012 and 2013.

Recent Posts

OpenAI Hit By Austrian Complaint Over ChatGPT ‘False Data’

Rights group argues ChatGPT tendency to generate false information on individuals violates GDPR data protection…

15 hours ago

EU Designates Apple’s iPad OS As DMA ‘Gatekeeper’

European Commission says Apple's iPadOS is 'gatekeeper' due to large number of businesses 'locked in'…

16 hours ago

Beating the Barbarians in the Cloud

As the cloud continues to be an essential asset for all businesses, developing and maintaining…

16 hours ago

Austria Conference Calls For Controls On ‘Killer Robots’

Internatinal conference in Vienna calls for controls on AI-powered autonomous weapons to ensure humans remain…

16 hours ago

Taiwanese Chip Giant Exits China Mainland

Major Taiwan chip assembly and test firm KYEC to sell Jiangsu subsidiary, exit mainland China…

17 hours ago

Deepfakes: More Than Skin Deep Security

As deepfake technology continues to blur the lines between reality and deception, businesses and individuals…

17 hours ago