A “false positive” result from Microsoft’s Windows Live
OneCare security software wrongly flagged Google’s Gmail service as
a virus over the weekend.
Microsoft launched the Windows Live OneCare safety scanning
service worldwide in August, less than three months after its US
debut. OneCare brings together anti-virus and anti-spyware
scanning, clean-up and tools aimed at boosting PC performance by
defragmenting the hard drive.
But a string of posts on the Windows OneCare online forum and
the Gmail help discussion group on Friday and over the weekend
revealed that OneCare was producing virus alerts when users opened
their Gmail accounts. A pop-up window appeared, saying that Windows
Live OneCare had detected the BAT/BWG.A virus.
One user told the OneCare forum that the problem recurred with
Gmail, despite a virus clean-up. “I have cleaned the drive and
rescanned with no problems being detected, but it comes back as
soon as I go to gmail,” forum poster drzeller said.
Google Groups poster JimmyJoker reported that he had deleted all
his saved and archived e-mails after receiving advice from Windows
Live OneCare technical support that the problem related to his
Gmail account. “Two years of carefully saved stuff is gone,” he
said.
Microsoft is understood to have resolved the problem on Sunday
evening, by introducing new antivirus signatures to avoid the
“false positive” result.
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