If you’ve downloaded Kaspersky Lab’s Flashfake Removal Tool this week, the company has found a bug that could cause other data to be removed as well. Meanwhile, Apple finally comes through with a fix of their own in a new Java update.
Kaspersky Lab sent out a statement via email late Thursday, following up on the company’s Flashfake Removal Tool for eradicating the Flashback trojan malware making headlines lately. As it turns out, a bug in that software may be removing more than just the bad stuff.
“Kaspersky Lab has identified an issue with its free Kaspersky Flashfake Removal Tool,” the email reads. “In some cases it is possible that the use of the tool could result in erroneous removal of certain user settings including auto-start configurations, user configurations in browsers, and file sharing data.
“The Kaspersky Flashfake Removal Tool has been temporarily suspended,” the email notes. “The company will release an updated version of the utility with the bug corrected and will send a notification as soon as it’s available. In the event that users experienced problems due to the use of the Flashfake Removal Tool, they should contact Kaspersky support at techsupport@kaspersky.com or by calling Moscow at +7 (495) 797-70-32 for 24/7 help in English or Russian.”
Kaspersky senior technology PR manager Greg Sabey closes the email with an apology for the inconvenience and vows the company is “working diligently to correct the problem.”
If you haven’t yet installed a tool for stomping out the Java-based Flashback malware, Apple has finally come to the rescue with Java for OS X Lion 2012-003, which is available now via Software Update for both OS X Lion and Mac OS X 10.6.
“This Java security update removes the most common variants of the Flashback malware,” an Apple support document notes. “This update also configures the Java web plug-in to disable the automatic execution of Java applets. Users may re-enable automatic execution of Java applets using the Java Preferences application. If the Java web plug-in detects that no applets have been run for an extended period of time it will again disable Java applets.”
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