Critical bug found in anti-virus software

New Scientist news service ^ | 22 December 2005 | Will Knight

[george76]

A critical software bug has been discovered in several of the most widely used anti-virus programs. It could be exploited to take control of a computer or to steal information, according to an analysis produced by the independent security analyst who made the discovery.

The glitch affects 39 different Symantec products - including both home and enterprise versions of its anti-virus software. It resides within the Symantec anti-virus library, which is used by all of the packages.

The analyst, Alex Wheeler, discovered that a critical error occurs when the Symantec anti-virus library decompresses files from "RAR" format for analysis

Symantec has confirmed the problem and produced an advisory of its own. It is currently working on a permanent fix but has released an update so that computers running its anti-virus software should automatically detect and block attempts to exploit the bug.

[Spktyr]

I agree, but I have class 1 end users using these computers (usually).

Unless you've done this sort of work, and it sounds like you might have, you have *no* idea how stupid people are when it comes to using the computer.

[dave k]

I agree...I dropped $75 last year for Norton, and for what? My computer eventually crashed due to lack of protection; plus, after a year, they wanted another $40 for renewal.

McAfee comes free w/ my high speed, and it has worked well to date.

[manwiththehands]

What a royal screwup.

[ASA Vet]

I don't either. I'm never had a virus attack on this VIC-20.

[angkor]

http://www.truecrypt.org/

[Tannerone]

Norton's always seemed to want to take over the entire computer. So stopped using Norton a long time ago. AVG and MicroTrend are good for me but presently using V-Shield

[sitetest]

Thanks for this article.

[Necrovore]

Good list except that Sygate has sold its firewall portion of the company to Symantec recently.

[joebuck]

"I use Trend Micro. A much "leaner" program that catches things Norton does not, and it doesn't try to take over your computer."

Roger that- I did the same thing. Norton also eats up a ton of system resources, drops .dll files all over your system and their utility package causes more issues than it resolves. Now that it looks like Trend Micro is going to start charging to upgrade on a yearly basis in order to continuing updating your definitions; I'm considering going over to that AVG free anti-virus. Anyone got any feedback on whether the freebie solution is solid? Can you have it automatically download and install updates invisibly in the bacground on a daily basis?

[jdm]

Thanks. Yeah, the list needs updating. I'll have to update it in the near future. I got the original list from FReeper "backhoe," I think, probably 12 - 14 months ago.

[joebuck]

"Anyone got any feedback on whether the freebie solution is solid? Can you have it automatically download and install updates invisibly in the bacground on a daily basis?"

LOL guess I should have read the entire thread before posting, as I see my question is answered many times above. Looks like it's AVG for me as soon as Trend Micro asks for more money to continue updating virus definitions.

[george76]

Thanks for your comments.

What is your opinion on dropping Norton in favor of AVG, Nod32, McAfee, BitDefender, or Sophos , etc.

[Principled]

mark

[jdm]

I'm not American in Tokyo, but my observation is that people who have been loyal to Norton stay loyal to Norton, regardless of how the product performs today vs. when they first started using it.

I would ditch Norton and use AVG instead. And then update and run Ad-Aware and SpyBot every other week and only update and run the free online scans, i.e., Trend Micro, Panda, BitDefender if you suspect your computer is really messed up.

[jdm]

I'll FReepmail you an updated list when it's available. I should have been more careful before posting all those links. Some of the links are outdated and no longer active. I'm working on a new, improved list. Stay tuned.

[zeugma]

Placemarker so I can send links to folks still running on microsoft's treadmill.

[steve-b]

Yep. I used Norton Utilities regularly up through the 2003 edition. When I tried to install the 2004 edition, it hosed my system and it took hours to fix.

[Principled]

thx much FRiend

[Eighth Square]

ping

[Scarchin]

I use ClamWin - Free