The IT Nerd

Now in its 10^th year, the McAfee Most Dangerous Celebrities list, from Intel Security, reveals which cultural personalities generate the most dangerous search results.

Globally, female comedian superstar, Amy Schumer, knocked Electronic Dance Music (EDM) DJ Armin van Buuren off of the list to become the most dangerous celebrity to search for online.

 With Cyber Security Awareness Month beginning on Oct. 1, Intel Security is reminding consumers to be vigilant in practicing safe online behaviour with the following tips:

•  Think before you click! Are you looking for the latest episode of Amy Schumer’s TV show “Inside Amy Schumer?” Don’t click on that third-party link. Get your content directly from the original source at comedycentral.com to ensure you aren’t clicking on anything that could be malicious
• Use caution when searching for “torrent.” This term is by far the riskiest search term. Consumers searching for torrents or files to download should be careful so as not to unleash unsafe content such as malware onto their computers
• Keep your personal information personal. Cybercriminals are always looking for ways to steal your information. If you receive a request to enter information like your credit card, email, home address, or social media login don’t give it out thoughtlessly. Do your research and ensure it’s not a phishing attempt that could lead to identity theft
• Browse with security protection like McAfee WebAdvisor software. WebAdvisor will help keep you safe from malicious websites and browser exploits by helping to identify potentially risky sites. A complimentary version of the software can be downloaded at www.mcafee.com/mcafeewebadvisor
• Use cross device protection. Consumers need to protect their digital lives and all devices regardless of where they are, what device they use or where they store their personal data. Use solutions that deliver protection against threats, such as malware, hacking and phishing attacks, and device-specific protection in case of loss or theft, which will also help to secure their identity across the devices they use

McAfee, now part of Intel Security, announced a new line of security suites that provide small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with a simple, flexible and cost-effective way to safeguard both their data and devices.

McAfee Small Business Security suite is optimized for businesses with up to 25 devices. For larger businesses, with up to 250 devices, McAfee Endpoint Protection Essential for SMB and McAfee Endpoint Protection Advanced for SMB are designed to protect devices and data while offering new cloud capabilities for additional management options. These suites are designed to help businesses improve user productivity, while providing protection against malware and exploits.

Now the challenges that these types of businesses have to deal with is complex. McAfee has been kind enough to provide me with an infographic (Warning: PDF) to help to illustrate them.

Yesterday must have been very interesting for John McAfee the eccentric founder of the McAfee anti-virus empire. You see, he was reported as being dead of an overdose according to this report. That forced him to take to Twitter to refute that in typical John McAfee style:

I felt fine when I went to bed last night. I had such great plans.. “RIP John McAfee” #allinclusivevacationdownsouth http://t.co/UEy8T1AUxo

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) September 9, 2013

For those wondering if im dead the answer is… “The Media is killing me, but somehow im still tweeting” #NotDeadYet pic.twitter.com/9qvNLBoFsg

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) September 9, 2013

The fun continues today:

Morning-check..Pulse…Check…Heartbeat… Check…Boner…Check… #Stillalive #GoodMorning #RT

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) September 10, 2013

It seems that this is the latest chapter in a man who has led, shall we say, an very interesting life. One wonders what’s next.

So, say you’re John McAfee and you get a pile of e-mail asking how someone uninstall the McAfee software because it is so difficult to do. What do you do? In this case, McAfee goes to YouTube trashes the company he founded with a f-bomb laced video. Note, this video is NSFW:

Now, let’s put the video aside for a second. McAfee anti-virus in my experience is an application that keeps me employed. Uninstalling it is difficult to say the least. Even if you uninstall the application, you often have to run the Consumer Products Removal Tool. And even then you may have to do some manual work and hope for the best as I sometimes can’t do much and I’m forced to back up the customer’s data and reinstall Windows fresh. The fact that you have to run an application AFTER you uninstall and then you still may have to go through some extra gymnastics to get this application off your computer is pretty bad. That doesn’t even begin to cover what it does to your PC while it’s installed, which is slow it down and make it unusable at times from my experience.

Needless to say, I do not recommend it. I should jump for joy that it exists as I get business from the fact that it exists. But I don’t because of the nightmares that it causes my customers.

Now, back to the video. The fact that he gets e-mails about this and has put out this video shows that he clearly is fed up with dealing with this seeing as the software still has his name on it. It sucks for Intel who are the current owners of McAfee. They need to come up with a response to this that involves fixing their uninstall process.

How about it Intel?

I’m guessing that the blowback from McAfee’s recent disaster with a recent update to their anti virus product that caused damage to Windows XP SP3 computers must have been so big that they have decided to do this if their support staff and downloadable tools don’t fix your issue:

If you have already incurred costs to repair your PC as a result of this issue, we’re committed to reimbursing reasonable expenses. Steps to process your reimbursement request will be posted in the next few days. Please check back here in a few days.

Because we value our loyal customers, if your PC was rendered inoperable or severely impaired as a result of the faulty file released you are eligible for a two year extension of your existing McAfee subscription free of charge.

No word on what “reasonable” means, but it should be really interesting to find out their definition of “reasonable.”

While I do think that this is attempt to cover their backsides show some goodwill, I also think that this might be a mistake. Why? They’ve all but admitted that they screwed up (after all, they use the word “faulty” in the link above). That now leaves the door wide open for lawsuits to come flying in their direction. Not to mention that they’re likely not going to reimburse the costs of an IT department who has deployed a McAfee solution to hundreds or thousands of computers that may be affected by this. That’s sure to tick somebody off. I might be wrong, but I doubt it. Expect the lawyers to be at the gates shortly.

The other thing that pops out at me is the fact that they are offering customers who got hit by this a two year extension of their subscription. Great PR for sure, but let’s think about this for a second. If you’re a customer who got hit by this issue, what are the odds that you’ll keep using McAfee products? I would say that that those odds are between slim and none and slim has packed his bags and left town.

Oh by the way, this little problem with McAfee hasn’t been a boon to me. I recommend a few other products that don’t cost my customers a dime and work very well. Which I guess proves that you don’t have to pay to get good protection for your computer.

If you’ve got McAfee Anti Virus installed on your PCs and your PCs are still working, consider yourself lucky. The word on the street is that one of their more recent updates (which has been removed from their download servers) will hose your PC. According to this knowledgebase article, the update makes McAfee think that a critical Windows file called svchost.exe is dangerous. Once it kills the file and restarts the computer, you will not be able to boot up again. This in the anti virus world is called a false positive. They tried to limit the damage on their blog:

McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to this release. We believe that this incident has impacted less than one half of one percent of our enterprise accounts globally and a fraction of that within the consumer base–home users of products such as McAfee VirusScan Plus, McAfee Internet Security Suite and McAfee Total Protection. That said, if you’re one of those impacted, this is a significant event for you and we understand that.

I guess they haven’t seen some of the press that’s floating around at the moment.

Now to be fair, this could happen to any anti virus vendor and this is perhaps more common than you may think. But anytime something like this happens, it is a major public relations nightmare. One has to wonder if this will cause people to flee to another product. There are several free options such as Microsoft Security Essentials as well as AVG to name two. Not to mention many paid options as well.

Expect to see McAfee’s market share tank in the short term.

UPDATE: News.com is reporting that a chain of grocery stores in Australia was hit by this and some of their stores were forced to close as a result. Not good PR for McAfee IMHO.