Panda releases live CD after signature update error

Antivirus company Panda Security is working on a live CD to help customers who have been affected by a bug and can no longer get their computers to work. The bug appeared on Wednesday after an update to a signature file and prevented PCs from rebooting.

That let the Spanish security company via Twitter on Friday. With the bootable CD, it tries to help the last customers who can no longer boot their computers after the corrupt update. Panda previously came up with a separate tool that allows customers to manually fix the bug.

Panda accidentally rolled out a corrupt signature file on Wednesday that labeled certain necessary files as malware. As a result, PCs could still function, but no longer restart. Several of the security company’s products, including Panda Antivirus Pro 2015 and Panda Cloud Protection, were found to be susceptible.

Panda advises users who have not started their computers after Wednesday to leave their PCs on for a while. The antivirus software should automatically pull in a fix. The Spanish company has since apologized to customers.

Panda isn’t the first antivirus company to accidentally mark erroneous files as malware. Competitors such as Avast, AVG and BitDefender have also experienced this in recent years.