Trend Micro continues to review its development
processes nearly a week after accidentally releasing a faulty antivirus
update that caused thousands of customers’ systems to bog down or lock up
completely last weekend.
The difficulties for the Tokyo-based security firm began last Friday when
the company released a fault in an update file that caused computers running
Windows XP (SP2), with either Trend Micro’s OfficeScan or VirusBuster
software, to seize. The fault ate up 100 percent of the processor’s cycles,
according to the company.
“This trouble was caused by insufficient work in compatibility testing of
the product with the operating system before it was released,” Trend Micro
said in a statement.
Trend Micro CEO Eva Chen said she expected the error to
impact second-quarter revenues and results, according to a published report.
“There will be some impact, mainly in Japan,” she reportedly told Reuters
in Tokyo.
Although the security firm said it won’t reimburse organizations for any
loss of business, it will offer compensation to its 3.5 million
customers in Japan who purchased VirusBuster. The firm will provide those
customers with an additional month of support for free, the report said.
According to several estimates, the company has lost $3 million as a
result of the snafu.
Michael Sweeny, a Trend Micro spokesman, could not estimate how many
customers worldwide were affected but said the company has been reaching out
to customers and channel partners about the problem, and had extended its
support hours to assist them.
“In order to provide support and help, we reached out to our premium
customers globally on Friday night and followed quickly with solutions on
our solution bank,” Sweeny said.
The company said customers who installed the update on Friday and met
existing software criteria experienced high CPU usage causing their systems
to become unusable or crash.
“Due to an isolated anomaly in the engineering, development and pattern
release process, the UltraProtect decompression may, in certain
circumstances, cause some systems to experience high CPU power consumption,”
Trend Micro said in a statement.
And the street has taken notice of the company’s difficulties as stocks
have tumbled $2.50 a share since Friday.
