Friday Rant - When antivirus software goes bad

I've long held the belief that antivirus software can be almost as bad as the malware it's trying to protect you from.  In fact, I believe that it's a lot worse. 

Over the past few years the "days since having a security software related hassle" board is reset with alarming regularity while the "days since last malware attack" just ticks on.  To this date we have yet to see any malware get a foothold on any of the systems at the PC Doc HQ, largely because we follow sensible practices - and we handle malware here on a regular basis.  We run a number of different products, partly because we got tired of all the machines being affected simultaneously when someone at the security companies dropped the ball - by mixing solutions from different vendors a problem with one doesn't bring all the systems down.

Today is one of those days where antivirus hassles have decided to strike.  The product giving us hassles today is Kaspersky.  Following the digestion of a dodgy update some point yesterday several systems started regurgitating the following error:

Cool eh?  But that's not the best of it.  Following that error message the system slows down to a snail's pace and then reboots.  Things seem OK after the reboot, but the feeling is short-lived as the cycle repeats itself ...

A quick search on the Kaspersky site revealed that this problem was widespread.

Kaspersky do now seem to have deployed a fix but this involves some hassle:  In settings -> Updates, uncheck the Update application modules, then force an update.  Then recheck Update application modules and force another update.

Not too much of a hassle if you only have a few machines affected, but if you have a few thousand, that's a big deal.

I think I'd rather take my chances with the malware ... at least I'm not paying for the privilege of getting those hassles.

Thoughts? And remember, since it's a Friday, you can vent your spleen about anything tech-related that annoys you!