A leading anti-virus software firm says a flaw in one of its programs has exposed its customers' computers to the risk of being hijacked by spammers.
McAfee said it planned to release a patch for its SaaS for Total Protection service by the end of Thursday.
The software is marketed as a "peace of mind" solution offering "complete email and web protection".
McAfee said there had been at least one related attack, but stressed that users' data had not been put at risk.
The problem was exposed on
British art firm Kaamar Limited's blog earlier this week.
Keith and Annabel Morrigan posted a warning to other owners of the product after receiving a message alerting them to the fact that their server had been sending out spam emails.
They said that further research had revealed their computer had been sending out the equivalent of what would have been 10 months' worth of normal traffic in one day.
After linking the botnet attack to a problem with their anti-malware software's "Rumor Service" they said that they had alerted McAfee to the problem on 5 January.
The owners of the Staffordshire-based business noted that their email address had been flagged up as a threat as a consequence of the attack, meaning that even their legitimate messages were now being blocked from delivery.
"
As an ultimate insult, even McAfee, whose software is at the root of our problems, now rate our email IP as 'High Risk': we can't email them as they have blacklisted us!" they wrote.
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