Webroot antivirus software temporarily saw Windows files as malicious

Antivirus company Webroot’s software has temporarily flagged legitimate Windows files as malicious. As a result, users of the business and consumer versions of the software had problems with unstable systems.

In a statement posted on its forum, Webroot said it has “identified multiple false positives for various programs” and is offering small businesses steps to recover the blocked files. It says managed service providers need another solution, which is currently in the works. Despite the blocked files, the operating system often continued to work, but the problems caused instability.

Ars Technica reports that the definitions causing the false detection were available for approximately 13 minutes. However, that was enough to cause harm to many users. In addition, sites such as Facebook and Bloomberg were marked as phishing domains, making them inaccessible. The site further reports that removing Webroot and restoring affected files from a backup appears to be a working solution.