Symantec AntiVirus Worm Hole Puts Millions at Risk

May 25, 2006

A gaping security flaw in the latest versions of Symantec's anti-virus software suite could put millions of users at risk of a debilitating worm attack, Internet security experts warned May 25.

Researchers at eEye Digital Security, the company that discovered the flaw, said it could be exploited by remote hackers to take complete control of the target machine "without any user action."

Check Symantec AntiVirus Worm Hole Puts Millions at Risk (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1967941,00.asp)

AND . . . Symantec appears to be using a rootkit feature!!!!

Wow... am I glad I'm on OSX... !

Having Symantec/Norton is as bad as having a worm anyway (as you'll find out if you have it on your box and try removing it).

Its long been a topheavy system resource hog, causing no end of problems on users computers, (not surprising when they just keep bolting extra junk on without any regard to program integration or operation), so it comes as no surprise to find its leaky as well.

When you've seen as many infected systems as I have, all running Norton/Symantec, you realise its as good at securing your system as a sieve is at holding water.

Good scanner is about all that can be said for it.

norton used to be a very good company and for the most part, probably still is. but, like gary said, any more i really dont want their stuff. their products tend to want to take complete control of your system and interfere with too much other stuff....and eat a lot of resources.

in the old days, when Norton was still Norton and not Symantec, they had very good products. disk doctor was a life saver and disk edit was the best hex editor i've ever used. but like a lot of independents that suddenly go commercial, they started producing load heavy crap and i pretty much quit using them.

so this recent bug is no surprise. and even the rootkit business isnt that surprising. microsoft is also talking about using rootkit stuff. i heard recently about a microsoft rootkit thing for vista dealing with vmware. frankly, i doubt i'll be upgrading from xp.

craig

For those of you who've had problems trying to remove Norton/Symantec from your systems, see advice :-

Here (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nsw.nsf/docid/2001091013435207?Open&src=&docid=2001092114452606&nsf=nav.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=&seg=)

Here (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039?Open&src=&docid=2001092114452606&nsf=nav.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=)


(Forgot to add, when you come to step 3 of 2nd link, fall about laughing and ignore).

For those of you who've had problems trying to remove Norton/Symantec from your systems, see advice :-

Here (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nsw.nsf/docid/2001091013435207?Open&src=&docid=2001092114452606&nsf=nav.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=&seg=)

Here (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039?Open&src=&docid=2001092114452606&nsf=nav.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=)
And when they're finished – after 72 hours of hard labor – can they send the bill to Ken Norton or Bill Gates . . . ?

http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3609501

hmph...one of these days I will have to set up linux on one of my machines, if only I could run all my software on it w/o WINE and suchlike...I would've ditched windows ages ago.