Kaspersky mistakes safe application for malware on HSBC site

Last weekend a false alert from Kaspersky Internet Security software made the internet users think that there was malware on HSBC's website. When logging onto the HSBC's Personal Internet Banking site customers were incorrectly informed by Kaspersky Internet Security that a malicious file containing the HTLM-Agent-CE Trojan had been loaded onto their systems.

However, according to the Kaspersky spokeswoman the warning was a false alarm which was "rectified quickly". Experts note that mistaking an application or, much worse, a system file for malware following a virus definition update is very common with security applications as the case with HSBC demonstrated.

Meantime, other security solutions vendors when contacted on Monday said that they hadn't seen anything malign on HSBC's website.