San Francisco (CA) – AVG has confirmed that a recent database update placed several iTunes DLL files in quarantine after falsely identifying them as a Trojan virus.
“Unfortunately, a recent virus database update resulted in iTunes being detected as a Trojan by AVG security products,” the company explained in a statement. “We can confirm that it was a false alarm. AVG immediately released a new virus database update (definition file 270.13.29/2260) that corrected this issue.”
Siobhan MacDermott – head of corporate communications at AVG – told TG Daily that a new database update was released five hours after the error was first identified.
“AVG Technologies had a brief moment over the weekend (a 5-hour span on Friday into Saturday morning) that iTunes users were told that iTunes was a Trojan and AVG didn’t allow iTunes to work,” said MacDermott. “AVG discovered the false alarm in the virus signature engine relating to some localization components of iTunes (so not iTunes as a virus but rather some localization components of iTunes) and it was fixed within 5 hours, the update was automatically released to all users by 5:30AM CET.”
According to MacDermott, AVG’s large user base let the company know “immediately” that there was a problem.
“We’re very pleased that our user base feels the freedom to tell us when there is a problem or notify us that we should check on any given situation,” added MacDermott.
