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rb2d2 · Sep 25, 2004

Yahoo's e-mail service is not infected with a computer virus, despite a warning from Symantec that says it is.

Starting sometime on Tuesday, accessing the beta version of Yahoo Mail on a PC with Symantec's updated antivirus software caused alarm bells to go off. The security software reported finding the "Feebs" worm on the Yahoo Web pages.

That warning was in error, Symantec said Wednesday.

"Symantec antivirus products...triggered a false-positive alert with Yahoo Mail beta," Vincent Weafer, a senior director at Symantec Security Response, said in an e-mailed statement.

Symantec started receiving reports of the incorrect warnings Tuesday evening, after it had sent out the latest antivirus definitions for its products. Symantec issued updated definitions later in the evening to fix the mistake, Weafer said.

"Given the timeliness of the response and the limited number of products which would have used those (incorrect) definitions, we expect the impact of this to be very limited," Weafer said, adding that Symantec received about a dozen reports from people who saw the false warning.

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

It sounds like they corrected the problem in a timely manner and that few people were affected...

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