Deadly Anti-Virus Updates

Printer-friendly version

With recent reports of AVG Anti-virus version 8 update incorrectley detecting critical system files as viruses and removing them, there is a good chance your system is not going to boot. Its important to understand a few things.

1. Anti-virus software works only when you are constantly keeping it uptodate. If you don't have a live internet connection up and running at all times, your ability to detect threats and fix problems with the anti-virus software is going to be limited. If you don't want to pay for a yearly subscription then you are better of using a free version that wont ask you to pay each year. Free versions don't work as well as commercial versions.
2. Anti-virus software companies make mistakes, its important to have a complete, recent backup of your system at all times. A complete backup of a system involves making a bit for bit image of your system drive, usually the C drive to some kind of external media like a USB Hard Drive. Acronis TrueImage is a very powerful tool for backing up your system.
3. If you feel your anti-virus program is interfering with your ability to use your computer, contact us right away. Don't wait for your computer to crash, by then its too late.

One of our clients ran into this problem, he had the update that was removing system files and causing his system not to boot. Since he was not keeping his anti-virus updated AVG was not able to send him critical updates that would have fixed this problem. Fortunately we were able to restore the system and make a backup. Don't let this happen to you, it can be a costly situation.