What was intended to be a harmless software update turned out to be a hassle for many AVG users yesterday. Apparently, the virus scanner released yesterday contained an incorrect virus signature. The signature led to a user alert about a Trojan in the critical Windows system file user32.dll. The Trojan, PSW.Banker4.APSA or Generic9TBN was mistakenly identified as being infecting the system file. The scanner then advised users to delete this file. Doing so caused Windows to crash and go in to a reboot cycle.
Users with the latest and previous versions of AVG were equally affected. However, the issue was noticed only with systems using Windows XP. AVG has since then issued a patch, which corrects this problem. For people who have been affected by this please visit the AVG support forums for help wit the fix. There are separate sections for users with AVG 7.5 and AVG 8.0. AVG has also issued an announcement apologizing users for the inconvenience caused which says, "Affected users unable to use their PCs should contact their AVG reseller or ask a friend to download the information and fix tool for them. After running the fix tool, users should run the AVG update program to download and install the correct AVG update. AVG sincerely regrets the inconvenience users have experienced. We are working to remedy the problem and ensure that any other potential vulnerabilities are identified and eliminated before they can impact users."
AVG is a popular free antivirus suite and is known for its dedicated user base.
