Hackers can crack top antivirus program

source

Yet another flaw with Norton. Half my customers have issues with Norton everyday. Lots of other free programs out that work just as well if not better.

Symantec Corp.'s leading antivirus software, which protects some of the world's largest corporations and U.S. government agencies, suffers from a flaw that lets hackers seize control of computers to steal sensitive data, delete files or implant malicious programs, researchers said Thursday.

Symantec said it was investigating the issue but could not immediately corroborate the vulnerability. If confirmed, the threat to computer users would be severe because the security software is so widely used and because no action is required by victims using the latest versions of Symantec Antivirus to suffer a crippling attack over the Internet.

have u heard anything about trend-MICRO not doing good or having flaws?

Trendmicro is good, so is AVG. Trendmicro is also a free online scanner if you don't want to have a program running on your computer. But I recommend you have one on your computer for active scanning.

I've said this time and time again about Norton. I discuss alot of issues surrounding Virus/Spyware & Protection against these files in the link you can find in my signature.

Norton is releasing a shabby program, that is only to be topped by the program it releases the following year. No longer are they seeing the profits they once had, and in an effort to retain these profits they put less money into the program itself.

This is where the customer begins to feel the difference. No longer does Symantec carry a monopoly in the Antivirus market.

I use AVG on my home computer and it protects well. What I appreciate about it is how it runs quietly in the background and not constantly jumping up with alerts like Norton or McAfee. Those alerts make some users feel comfortable that its actually working, but with a closer look its really doing nothing.

Some links:

Antivirus Protection & Free Online Virus Scans

Windows One Care (Microsoft's Antivirus)
Free AVG Antivirus
Free Online Scan with TrendMicro
Free Online Scan with Microsoft
Free Online Scan with PandaSoftware

I also recommend Spysweeper however the full program does come at a cost.

You can find a free 14 day free trial at SoftPedia. You need to use the search fuction and type in: spysweeper 4.5.8.683

This will bring you to a download for the Free Trial.

Yup, buggy as all get out. But folks do need something. Some of our boxes have NOD32 out of Europe and it seems OK and doesn't use too much resources... all our big stuff is RSA and F-Prot. Symantec does make a slick corporate appliance tho'... couple of my buds down at the TSX aren't complaining about it anyway. If there's a hole they'll patch it. It was only a matter of time before this happened again... pretty crafty really, if I was a "black hat" (I'm not) firewall, router and AV hardware/fimware/software is where I'd look for the cracks and see what escalation of privileges were possible. At least these fellows have brought it to the attention of those best able to do something about it. That's a good thing, there were other possibilities I'm sure.

Thanx for the heads up, always on a Friday afternoon,
Hmmm no US-CERT alert about it either yet,

Victor K.



[edit on 26-5-2006 by V Kaminski]

Here's the straight goods from Symantec from yesterday... correct me if I'm wrong but this does not apply to their consumer line of software... so no worries unless your product is mentioned?

www.symantec.com...

Thanx,

Victor K.

Update: Here's a link for Symantec's Corporate patch www.symantec.com...

No consumer versions of Symantec software were affected.

Victor K.