For companies using McAfee's antivirus products, this week delivered a nightmare scenario for organizations running the unfortunate combination of Windows XP SP3 and VirusScan 8.7--or the latest version of the product.

In a nutshell: A bad virus definition was pushed out, which resulted in the antivirus software (wrongly) turning on the critical "scvhost.exe" system file in Windows XP SP3 as a malware infestation. Some cases saw the file being quarantined while others simply resulted in the file being deleted outright.

Affected systems either end up with a "blue screen" or experienced a perpetual state of reboot. Many cases also saw the loss of network connectivity and inability to access USB. You can see the overview of the situation at the official McAfee information page about the problem here. But let's just say that the situation is bad, and requires affected workstations to be repaired manually.

Executive vice president of support, Barry McPherson did not evade the fact that the company screwed up. While noting that he was approaching his fourteenth straight hour on the phone with the support team on this issue, he wrote on his blog "Mistakes happen. No excuses."

For now, McPherson says that McAfee is now working around the clock to help customers who have been affected by this issue get back to business. However, he promised that once that is done, McAfee will "put the processes in place so this never happens again."

You can read more about my thoughts on this fiasco in today's editorial.

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