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How secure is Norton then..?

 
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Davy
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Joined: 30 Apr 2005
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Location: Nr Manchester. UK
PostPosted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:26 pm    Post subject: How secure is Norton then..? Reply with quote
How secure is Norton, here's a glimps of an article from PC Magazine.

Quote:
The tool used to update the virus definitions in Symantec's antivirus products has a security hole that can allow hostile code to be downloaded to PCs, according to the German hacking group Phenoelit.

LiveUpdate, the software used by Symantec's antivirus software to automatically update virus protections when updates become available, has flaws in both the 1.4 and 1.6 versions that allow for the attacks, Phenoelit says. When LiveUpdate 1.4 looks for updates, it attempts to connect to a specific server at Symantec, the group said. That connection, however, can be hijacked using a number of Domain Name Server attacks and rerouted to the server of the attacker's choice

For full details see-:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,65744,tk,dn101101X,00.asp

Well after 6 re-installs and twice having to reformat the HDD twice I learned my lesson and 'ditched' Norton NIS 2005 yesterday, when a live update decided to play havoc, I discovered that virus alerts could not be enabled and that I lost Windows 'Help and Support' in programme start menu, all was well prior to the update. The product itself was purchased November 2004.

Reading the article makes one wonder just how secure Norton is, it updates once a week which is too late, far too late for any new viruses that's just released in between time.

Any AV is only as good as it's updates, sadly Norton is not one of them.

Davy
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Overclocked
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Joined: 16 Jan 2004
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Location: Adelaide, Australia
PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 3:05 pm    Post subject: Re: How secure is Norton then..? Reply with quote
There is another Symantec AntiVirus vulnerability I spotted on SANS site on Oct. 5th:
Quote:
iDEFENSE Labs has notified Symantec about a remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability in the Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine that can allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code. The iDEFENSE Advisory says "A remote attacker can send a specially crafted HTTP request to the administrative Scan Engine Web Service on port 8004 to crash the service or execute arbitrary code

Oh well, I gave up on Symantec products three years ago :P
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Davy
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Joined: 30 Apr 2005
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Location: Nr Manchester. UK
PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 7:31 pm    Post subject: Re: How secure is Norton then..? Reply with quote
Thanks for Info.
Symantec's fast becoming a joke, wonder how the corporate members are coping... maybe it was the exploits that troubled me, it was corrupt downloads from them I know what did it for sure on two ocassions, it happened before my very eyes.

Edited Sunday 16 Oct. 05

I finally 'ditched' Norton after yet another corrupt download that happened before my eye's again....

but strange thing happened, I could not even uninstall it, not even with the SymNRT download from Symantec so out it came for the very last time and yet another re-format.

This time is stays out.

Davy
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law24
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Joined: 24 Jan 2006
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:37 pm    Post subject: Re: How secure is Norton then..? Reply with quote
Overclocked wrote:
There is another Symantec AntiVirus vulnerability I spotted on SANS site on Oct. 5th:
Quote:
iDEFENSE Labs has notified Symantec about a remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability in the Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine that can allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code. The iDEFENSE Advisory says "A remote attacker can send a specially crafted HTTP request to the administrative Scan Engine Web Service on port 8004 to crash the service or execute arbitrary code

Oh well, I gave up on Symantec products three years ago :P


Not sticking up for Symantec but did you and the person who posted before you check the date of the articles you were talking about? One of them was from 2001 and the other was of very old versions of symantec (4) i am using symantec 10.01 and quite happy with it. Just my opinion.
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Davy
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Joined: 30 Apr 2005
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Location: Nr Manchester. UK
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:58 pm    Post subject: Re: How secure is Norton then..? Reply with quote
It sure did cause headaches, since ditching NIS2005 I have had no problems what so ever, the problem was caused by download files from them, the version I had was still under licence.

Not just me but other people have had similar problems, NIS2005 is supposed to be secure for goodness sake, what so secure about it if people can hack and re direct a supposedly secure website.

Norton has never been the same since Symantec took over no more Symantec on my computer thanks.

Davy
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law24
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Joined: 24 Jan 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:39 pm    Post subject: Re: How secure is Norton then..? Reply with quote
Davy wrote:
It sure did cause headaches, since ditching NIS2005 I have had no problems what so ever, the problem was caused by download files from them, the version I had was still under licence.

Not just me but other people have had similar problems, NIS2005 is supposed to be secure for goodness sake, what so secure about it if people can hack and re direct a supposedly secure website.

Norton has never been the same since Symantec took over no more Symantec on my computer thanks.

Davy


Fundamentally I agree with you. I would not put NIS on my computer because of the problems it creates and even Symantec will tell you there uninstaller does not work you need to do it manually in the registry. I was just stating that the articles referenced were old. Like I said I was not sticking up for them but in the environment I manage a medium size company with offices all over the country they offer some nice features with there Symantec Control Center. I have not found a software firewall that I like that does not cause issues to one thing or another therefore i would not run a software firewall NIS or other. With all that said if you had suggestions of an antivirus program that is better I would certainly be open to suggestions. Thanks for your reply
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:41 pm    Post subject: Re: How secure is Norton then..? Reply with quote
Thanks law24, the very last time I un-instaled Symantec I could not even use the disc nor the Symantec NRT download tool, for some strange reason it just would not un-install.

I knew about 'removing all to do' in the regestry but I was in that frame of mind what made me do a reformat leaving the devil out.

A shame because Symantec served me well in the past so I thought, but did could not keep sorting the problems out with the NIS2005 purchase.

Thanks for the contribution

Davy
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Davy
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Joined: 30 Apr 2005
Posts: 1862
Location: Nr Manchester. UK
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:43 pm    Post subject: Re: How secure is Norton then..? Reply with quote
Sorry, for some reason I didn't log in.

Davy
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