AVG Goofs, Makes iTunes A Virus

An AVG update over the weekend falsely labeled iTunes as viruses, meaning they were quarantined and could not be re-installed.

Antivirus updates do sometimes identify false positives, and that’s embarrassing. But over the weekend AVG pulled a doozie on iTunes.

It identified iTunes.dll and iTunesRegistry.dll library files as being infected with the Small-BOG virus, and consigned into quarantine. That meant, for AVG users, iTunes stopped working and people couldn’t re-install the software, according to The Register.

Within 24 hours, AVG had issued a statement and apologized and offered instructions:

“Unfortunately, a recent virus database update resulted in iTunes being detected as a Trojan by AVG security products. We can confirm that it was a false alarm. AVG immediately released a new virus database update (definition file 270.13.29/2260) that corrected this issue. If you are having problems, please update your AVG and check your iTunes again.”