It’s a risk, any time you install any antivirus program made by any company. The reality though, is that these things happen. This is not a sign that you should immediately dump Panda in preference for some other antivirus solution, although that may be a temptation, in light of the issue. In addition to their “Project Zero” program which researches and identifies potential exploits in commonly used software, the company owns VirusTotal, which has begun collaborating with a number of antivirus software makers in an effort to research the issue and see if a way can be found to reduce the number of false positives that antivirus software reports. There are no perfect solutions to the problem, but big companies, Google included are paying an increasing amount of attention to the issue. Overnight, millions of PC’s with the software installed became little more than high-tech paperweights. In 2010, the venerable antivirus company McAfee, accidentally flagged and deleted one of the files essential for Windows XP to function. They’re constantly changing the profiles of the software they write, which means that antivirus companies must constantly evolve and adapt with them, lest something harmful get through the chinks in your virtual armor.īecause of this, it is sometimes the case that software that’s perfectly fine, safe, and even necessary for your computer to function gets flagged as malware, with often tragic results.

Hackers are a clever lot, and relentlessly innovative. Other scenarios include random crashes to desktop, random reboots, general instability or an inability to access the internet until the issue is fully resolved.Ī spokesman for the company says that the erroneous signature file was corrected immediately, so most of the problems have been fixed, but at least one person in ten may still suffer from one or more of the above problems until a final resolution is reached.įor the time being, the company advises Panda-Free users simply not to reboot their machines, and that a permanent solution is forthcoming.ĭetecting viruses and malware is an inexact science, at best. It won’t be able to, because when it tries to access those core files and sees them in quarantine, it will simply shut your computer back down in order to avoid accessing the “malware” files. When it does that, if you reboot your PC, odds are good that it won’t boot up again.

There’s a problem with the software in that it identifies itself as malware, and puts core files into quarantine. If you use Panda’s free antivirus software, you could be in some trouble.

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