Symantec flagged Yahoo Mail Beta as a virus

Mar 1, 2007 08:29 GMT  ·  By

Even if Yahoo Mail Beta is currently used by millions of clients from every corner of the world, this doesn't mean the product is safe and secure. Symantec, the well known security company, flagged the beta mail service as a virus but the firm's officials sustained it was just an error. It seems like the notification was caused by the latest update included in Symantec's antivirus solution, alerting the users that visiting the mail service might get their computers infected. Starting with Tuesday night, the security company received an impressive number of reports that concern the notification, its employees trying to solve the issue very fast to avoid a greater impact over the mail solution.

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

This is not the first incorrect warning displayed by the antivirus solutions concerning well known Internet products. In November 2006, the Microsoft antivirus product Windows Live OneCare flagged Gmail as a virus, millions of users receiving a notification about a potential infection discovered in Google's mail service.

As you might know, Symantec announced a few days ago the final version of its latest security suite, Norton 360, a product that is regarded as the best application ever created to assure the protection of a vulnerable computer. The solution is Vista-compatible and contains several utilities able to enhance the security of a system such as firewall, antivirus, application control and many other useful tools.