CA, in a support alert, indicated that a signature update incorrectly identified the Windows process lsass.exe as carrying the Win32/Lassrv.B virus, and deleted it.
This could cause a crash and problems rebooting, CA and other security experts said. CA told users to boot from a floppy, manually replace the lsass.exe file, and update eTrust with newer non-faulty signatures.
CA is not the first antivirus vendors to be caught out in this way, though it is relatively rare. Trend Micro suffered embarrassment over such an incident with its consumer products last year, and McAfee had a similar problem this year.
