Leading Antivirus Software Exposes Customer Computers

[LiberalHeart]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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.

Much more:
http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=4950762

[flyingfysh]

1. another buffer overflow, I bet

Buffer overflows allowed by mistakes in C/C++ code are the #1 cause of this kind of code insecurity. These are another argument for coding in C# or Java whenever possible.

[brooklynite]

2. Sort of defeats the purpose of the software...

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

3. I've stopped using Symantec on ANY of my client's machines

I recommend McAfee only. Symantec is well and truly broken, and has been for at least two years now.

[5X]

4. Agreed, but their software vulnerabilities have made me a lot of money...

removing viruses and trojans.

[lyonn]

6. My Norton contract is about up,

Do you agree on McAfee?

[HannibalBarca]

7. Happy user of norton for several years now

....and not a virus in sight!

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

10. ...that you're aware of.

:shrug:

[arikara]

22. Beware, when you go to renew it

read my cautionary tale below!

[SharonAnn]

32. Me too. Actually I use Norton Internet Security (has Anti-Virus SW in it)

We test our systems from time to time with other products and have not found any viruses for many years.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

12. Try this...

... Computer Associates Etrust Anti-Virus. I have put it on many of my friends and relatives computers and it seems to solve all their problems. McAfee has caused problems for several of them, too. Etrust has a nicer price, also.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

34. Thanks for the info...

I'm checking it out now. :-)

[5X]

15. McAfee or....

free.grisoft.com
AVG Antivirus

[acmejack]

16. Pc World misses the mark

Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2006 is a mature product that performs nicely--so nicely that we named it the Best Buy among ten security suites we looked at.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125857,00.asp

[lyonn]

25. Thanks all, but, now I am confused

I do plan to check McAfee out.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

9. Me too

but my job is still to protect their machines, and I will NOT install defective crap, including software, on a client machine.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Ott Ooh!

[truthisfreedom]

8. in modern life, the cure is often worse than the disease...

how did we ever get away with developing penicillin?

[brianzero]

11. Just get a physical firewall and use Firefox...

And you wont have to worry about viruses. Yes, and of coarse, dont screw around with attachments. Bottomline, I think that software virus scanners are a false sense of security.

The only time I had viruses/spyware, is when I still used Internet Explorer. Now, I use Firefox and havent had a virus/spyware issue for the last two years.

[postulater]

13. Is a router a physical firewall or do I need another piece of eqpt?

[McKenzie]

18. It's a peripheral hardware gizmo

I'm behind one right now - I trust it waaay more than vapourware.

Don't need to worry about virii either because I'm on a Mac.

Cheers.

[Sgent]

24. Most modern

routers are also firewalls of some sort. How configurable they are, and how much of a firewall depends on the specific model.

For home use, just about anything with NAT which denies outgoing connections will work.

[mcscajun]

14. I ditched Norton last year in favor of Grisoft's AVG

and I haven't regretted it.

ZoneAlarm for firewall, Firefox browser, Thunderbird E-mail client.

It's a beautiful thing. :)

[Cronus Protagonist]

19. AVG is the best

http://free.grisoft.com

(I have no business with them, I just use and like thier products)



Educate A Freeper - Flaunt Your Opinions!
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[johnfunk]

17. I'm using Trend Micro on my Windows PC, very happy with it...

It takes a little tweaking and isn't ideal for novice Windows users, but I like it FAR better than the memory-hogging, long-past-its-peak Symantec software.

[callous taoboy]

35. I also like Trend Micro way more than Symantec

I am convinced that Norton allowed several evil things to slip on by and infect my computer. I had my credit card info stolen, for one, and I also had a warning message pop up telling me that there were odd things happening to my registry.

I wiped my HD and installed Trend Micro and haven't had a problem in over two years, plus I get updates every day from Trend whereas with Symantec I got an update every few days.

John- What sort of tweaking are you referring to?

[johnfunk]

36. Tweaking? Basically, it's all the OPTIONS Trend Micro gives...

... in their control panel. I have a home network, and it takes a little bit of looking around at all the features and settings to make it work on a network, but it's worth poking around.

[OldEuropean]

20. Alternatives

Have a look at the test results here:

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

If your antivirus program is not listed there, they
either refused to participate or failed to reach the
minimum detection rate. :)

[Iowa]

28. Thanks! I was all set to switch to AVG until I saw...

the results of that analysis. Now I'm not so sure... only 90.47% detection overall. Even Norton had 97.61%. The test linked in your post broke the programs down into three categories: Advanced+, Advanced, and Standard. AVG was "Standard" (lowest). Norton was Advanced+ (highest). But AVG has a free version.

I'm using a Firewall with NAT and Firefox most of the time (some pages don't display correctly in Firefox and force me to flip to IE). Would any of you who are experts in the field have any qualms about using AVG despite the rating in those tests? Thanks.

[OldEuropean]

29. Another test

http://www.virus.gr also did some testing, however their virus collection is considered unsorted and includes too many non-malware and damaged files. However, they tested alot more programs and the test results pretty much reflect the impression I have (I am working for an anti virus company) from my own testing.

Firefox is becoming more and more vulnerable as it became more popular. By now, there are almost as many exploits for Firefox as for IE - only that Microsoft needs longer to release patches. Opera is the fastest in releasing security fixes.
Keep in mind that you not only must keep Windows up-to-date with the latest security patches, but also Firefox, Opera, Java (!), mail, firewall, ICQ, IRC, Winamp (streaming) and every other programm that you use that has online functionality.
Every program that accepts data from the internet and parses the data is a potential security risk.
DiamondCS Process Guard or System Safety Monitor are excellent additional protection tools (I never use any PC without
Process Guard on it), but they are a bit more complicated to use and configure propperly.
DefenseWall from Softsphere is interesting too and far easier to use (you only must add all online applications to the untrusted list).

BTW, av-comparatives will release a new test on June, 1st, covering heuristic (retro-active) detection.

[Iowa]

31. Thanks OldEuropean...

Your comments and resources were very helpful.

[arikara]

21. They just discovered a problem?

Freaking morons! My norton firewall expired some time last year and I purchased a new one online. Their process is so screwy, in order to install the new one, I had to remove the old copy. During this process 2 trojans - that norton virus had allowed in the first place - were set off. Thankfully, I noticed the modem lights flashing and shut everything down but it was too late. I had to take it in to the shop to remove the virii and all traces of norton. I complained and got my money back, but nobody that I spoke to cared about what happened. In fact they wanted to charge me a fee to tell me how to remove the virus that they caused!

If it happened with me, it probably happened with thousands of other users too. I'm now using AVG for virus and a router for security. An added benefit is that the computer is 4 times as fast without that pig norton.

edit: typo

[lyonn]

26. Hmmm, about a month ago Norton said I had a trojan??

Warnings flashing that evening and I scoped out my latest scan and was, as usual, confused. Computer Stupid. Anyway, days later I ran a scan and it didn't show up?? Since you mentioned your "trojans" and the process for the new acct., I am worried. Just checked AVG and think that is what I'll use. Thanks

[TexasLawyer]

23. But thank God computer voting is safe from all problems!

The systems are designed by "experts," who have made their voting systems invulnerable to hacking or tampering!

Yay!

:sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm:

[ecoalex]

27. Ya, Symantec sucks, Ya, definately sucks, Ya

[Sgent]

30. A few thoughts

This bug does NOT affect the consumer version -- just the corporate licenses.

Norton has a very slick deployment for corporate installations. CA's eTrust AV is probably the only one comparable for deployment features.

[WhiteTara]

33. phew! I have AVG

and I seem to stay well.