On Tuesday, US security software company McAfee said it would reimburse home and home office users for any “reasonable expenses” incurred in the wake of its online antivirus-update-gone-wrong last week. It would also extend subscriptions by two years.

What should have been a routine update of virus signatures turned into a nightmare for many Windows XP users last Thursday, causing some PCs to crash, or falling into a cycle of endless restarts.

Quelle horreur! France admits its naval systems were taken offline by the Conficker worm during January, but disputes that planes were grounded. Meanwhile, an antivirus software maker says “the new digital plague” now infects one in 16 PCs.