From the “human error” files:
Everyone loves a good conspiracy (myself included) — which is what led to a wildfire of speculation today about Symantec trying to download alleged malware onto users PCs, with a file called pifts.exe.
To add further fuel to the fire, Symantec deleted posts in its user forum related to the pifts.exe issue.
I just spoke with Symantec and they argue that the file is not malware and that the error they made was a human one.
Jeff Kyle, group product manager at Symantec, explained to me that pifts.exe was a diagnostic patch for Norton Internet Security 2006 and 2007 versions. The patch was out for three hours before Symantec noticed that the patch wasn’t digitally signed.
Symantec signs all of its patches to ensure authenticity, buy not signing the patch, it triggered a malware alert on antivirus systems.