Panda bites back

According to the virus protection specialist, it had to alert Spanish users quickly as the destructive Little Davinia worm was being released from a well-known Spanish portal. Any delay, the company claimed, would have meant more damage to users.

Competing anti-virus vendors criticised the company for withholding copies of the worm from researchers. Panda discovered the malware on Friday, but rivals Symantec, Sophos and Network Associates (NAI) were unable to obtain copies until Monday morning.

Patrick Hinojosa, VP and general manager of Panda Software US, said in a statement: "We know our competitors look to us to provide information on new viruses from around the world. We are continuing to work on streamlining the means of providing this information to our competitors."

But Jack Clark, product marketing manager at NAI, said: "This is just a publicity stunt and to be honest it stinks."

Clark added that customers can be alerted much more quickly through internal systems than by media alerts. "This worm was nowhere near justifying the type of alert Panda sent out," he claimed.