Never once did I face such problems with an antivirus software. So far I’ve used quite a range of antivirus softwares ranging from free versions to the paid ones. BitDefender was one of the paid software I actually spent money on that works rather well, at least till my computer was destroyed. Around a day ago (Sunday 1 am in the morning?) did I face with the horrors I have never encounter before.

BitDefender was working as usual, protecting my computer from harm until it had an update. Suddenly while working on some documents, BitDefender started reporting infections that had made it into the computer. The infection was called “Trojan.Fakealert.5”. Immediately I went to google and search for information regarding the Trojan. I found out that the Trojan.Fakealert infections were rather serious but how exactly did I get such attacks? More and more of my files were quarantined for such infections. I felt that something was wrong, very wrong. Every single file I opened was deemed as infected and soon even my system files were quarantined. I panicked, and did the most stupid thing ever and that is to restart my computer. As you know, my system files were missing and thus the computer couldn’t start.

I went onto my laptop to search up on the issue and it seemed as though many people are affected with this particular problem. Many suggested to quickly turn off the real time scanning and best not to shut the computer off. I felt stupid and hopeless but I had no choice since I didn’t have the privilege of having such information at the time when I searched up. Sad but I knew my computer died. I had to reinstall and do every single thing again in order to change my computer back into working order.

What exactly happened? It seemed as though the people at BitDefender fell asleep and accidentally uploaded a faulty security update. What we do know however is that the update given by BitDefender was the fault as it resulted in the many false alarms. The good or bad (not sure) thing is that it only affects 64bit windows systems. Lucky or unluckily my computer was that of 64bit and thus affected and because of panicking and not staying calm it resulted in me wasting my whole Sunday just to fix up my computer.

What shocked me was the very fact that such an update could be uploaded and given to the users. That is the very first pointer that made me furious and pissed. Another was the fact that it took them so long, to even taken down that faulty update. People complaining and it took a few pages within their forums for them to finally respond. That is totally unacceptable. Lastly, they up till now do not have a definite fix for people’s computer who has their files quarantined. They do have some solutions and even some program to help but it seem as though it is not fully workable and is simple something they pulled up to try ease the chaos and anxiety within users. Just read this:

“IMPORTANT! It is possible that the Repair procedure may not work from the first time. If it fails, reboot the PC and run the procedure again as it should work in maximum 3 attempts.”

Maximum 3 attempts, is this a joke or what? My Dad tried using it (didn’t have the update till the next morning, no idea why they didn’t pull it out by then maybe some error again? Not sure but the “solutions” were out already then) and it didn’t work. Luckily he had a restore point (which I didn’t, got quarantined already) and restored to safety. Anyways what is done cannot be undone. Already reinstalled my whole computer and not going to extend my subscription with BitDefender. Not even going to use it till my license expires for like the saying goes, once bitten twice shy.

For those affected do take a look at these links:

http://news.bitdefender.com/NW1431-en–Trojan.FakeAlert.5-Update-issue.html

http://www.bitdefender.com/site/KnowledgeBase/consumer/#638

They apologized, but will you accept it? You decide, BitDefender or BitDestroyer.

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