Bonkers MS security update flags Google.com as malign

A dodgy update to Microsoft's anti-virus software on Tuesday meant users of the software were wrongly warned that Google's homepage was infected with the infamous Blackhole Exploit Kit. Users of Microsoft's Forefront corporate security products (here) and freebie Security Essentials scanner software (here) were both affected …

[Dan 55]

Sounds about right to me

I hope more companies will throw of the shackles of potential litigation action and label Google for what it is!

[Lockwood]

Valentine's Day SNAFU.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue.

We made Bing;

No Google for you.

[Bob Vistakin]

Ahem

Roses are red

Violets are blue

We made a wrapper round Google

And serve its results to you

http://goo.gl/4oPvL

[Kool-Aid drinker]

FAIL

That is all.

[Yag]

mmmh?

And what is the actual problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds about right...

...coming from Microsoft. They never get anything right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sounds about right...

Can't agree with you there. I've been treating Google as malign for the last 18 months; and nothing that's happened during that time has given me reason to change that.

[Crazy Operations Guy]

Re: Sounds about right...

By that logic, Google is worse. there was the time that they classified the entire internet, including themselves, as 'dangerous'

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, they also classify the eicar test string as a severe threat :)

[JDX]

Oooh

Tricky story for the commentards, this. Who to hate the most...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oooh

Google obviously.

If nothing else, Microsoft never claimed to be anything more than a bunch of a**seholes and didn't hide behind a meaningless slogan that has hoodwinked millions

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats easy

Apple

[Shakje]

Re: Thats easy

People who don't use apostrophes.

[fishman]

Re: Oooh

The Reg needs to do a poll: Most hated company in IT

1) Microsoft

2) Google

3) Apple

4) Oracle

And no easy "All of the above".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Re: Oooh

Apple would get the most votes. The majority of commenters here are FOSS supporters. Even those that like apple will post anonymously.

Hating apple is the new cool thing at the moment.

I think Google would be a close second

no one cares about MS any more

[jake]

Re: Re: Oooh

5) The Russian spammers

6) The US .gov

7) SOCA

8) Adobe

9) So-called "Web Designers"

10) ... never mind. I'll stop for your reading pleasure ...

[Tom 13]

Re: Oooh

Who says I have to pick ONE?

[TeeCee]

Microsoft.

Now putting the boot in for Scroogle, so you don't have to.

[robert 15]

bbc too?

Ive had reports of Forefront flagging BBC Scotland website as serving blackhole today as well...

[TRT]

Re: bbc too?

I think that's just Scotland as a whole.

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite the usual deluge of praise heaped on it, even here - I think the first warning to me that a lot of computer-illiterates post on The Reg - one can only imagine because it is free, ad-free, and probably because it's from Microsoft who are the bestest IT company on Earth - since it was Giant-just-bought-by-MS, then Windows Defender, MSAS - and FFS OneCare, that people actually paid for (!) the product has been unadulterated shite.

:)

[Arctic fox]

"........MS security update flags Google.com as malign"

.......and the problem is?

Sorry, the temptation was too much to resist. -:)

[David 164]

Re: "........MS security update flags Google.com as malign"

That it did not do the same for Bing, who do all of the same things that Google search does. An as it Microsoft it probably even more evil than Google.

[Tom 13]

Re: MS Probably more evil

Nah, I have to give that to Google. Their slogan is the first sign.

First, MS only wants most of my money, not all of my personal details which they sell to other people to make money. Second, while it may be possible to avoid MS product in your environment, it is theoretically possible. Even if you never use Gmail, Google Search, Google Toolbars, GoogleDesktop, Google Earth, or any of the various other Google Apps (including Android), if you've read this post, Google has learned something about you. Because like 99% of the other websites out there, El Reg uses Google Analytics in their pages.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Re: MS Probably more evil

Ghostery. Now in FF and Opera flavours. Possibly more...not checked.

[Gordon Fecyk]

Why do I miss out on all of this fun?

I never get problems like this. I only get oddities like cbc.ca telling me to upgrade to IE8 when I'm running IE9.

And the missing DLL in IE8 on XP? Didn't happen to me, either.

I swear, I'm missing out on the whole Windows Experience here.

[eulampios]

false positive

Microsoft should get some kind of anti-Nobel prize for inventing many infection vectors, like this one: clicking on a web link or visiting an infected website. Then you have a whole menagerie of possibilities. Like, with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, there is a false positive and false negative (errors of the I,II kind).

The multi-billion antivirus industry is so much in debt to Microsoft, they should be paying 1/10 of their revenues to the Grand Master from Redmond, WA that had innovatively begotten their business.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no doubt this was indeed nothing but a mistake

but let's look at the interesting opportunities we could have here.

[mhenriday]

Like Anonymous Coward,

I have no doubt that this incident - like other «glitches» in MS code which «accidently» derailed Google products - was nothing but an unfortunate mistake. After all, we all know how much Steven Anthony - «I'm going to f***ing kill Google.» - Ballmer loves and appreciates Google, in particular Eric Schmidt (http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-5846243.html)....

Henri