False positive by Norton forces some Firefox users to reinstall after 3.6.6 update

False positive by Norton forces some Firefox users to reinstall after 3.6.6 update

Filed under: Security, Mozilla, Symantec, Browsers

False positives aren't all that uncommon -- with so many different antivirus and antimalware products out there, so many threats, and so much untested software, it's to be expected that detection mishaps are going to happen. Mishaps like that little McAfee situation earlier this year...

Today's offender is Symantec, whose Antivirus and Internet Security products decided to push the panic button on a trio of files delivered to Firefox users who recently updated to version 3.6.6. The problem was reported to Symantec and has been fixed in new virus definitions, and the problem appears to have arisen because of the cloud analysis features in a newer version of the Norton products.

If the detection happened to nuke your Firefox install, just force a definition update and then reinstall your browser.

The H notes that even a simple 'hello world' script can set things off if it hasn't been detected previously. Call me crazy, but that seems like a bit of a problem...

False positive by Norton forces some Firefox users to reinstall after 3.6.6 update originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Maria Bello
Jennifer O'Dell