Question

[36_chambers]

Does anyone know of any weakness in the Norton Antivirus 2002 or their firewall? Holla

[preacherman481]

Why do you want to know?

[KorpDeath]

Besides them being developed by Norton??

[Euclid]

I know of a weakness in nortan anti-virus all versions actually all anti-virus software.
If its new you arent protected.

For further information do some research i recomend www.google.com

[THEJRC]

The largest weakness I've seen in any antivirus software is'nt really due to the software, its due to poor use. Pretty much every AV suite out there now offers an automagic update utility (norton has its liveupdate) which is nice, however most people set it to default (twice a month with norton) and all of a sudden theyre "up to date!!".....

This is a false sense of security on the user/admin's part, if you update on the 15th and the 28th..... and an outbreak of a new virus appears on the 22nd.... unless norton was slick enough to tell the future and come up with an update days ahead (yeah.. uh this doesnt happen guys) your pretty much unprotected. Or left scrambling for an update (which of course can be a pain in the ass during an outbreak that gets media attention, nortons servers can only handle sooo much load ya know).

I've seen many an admin place too much reliance on auto-updates (well duh, it makes life soooo much easier) and spend little if any time proactively updating and researching his systems. Best bet is to keep the auto updates on, but establish a good habit of running updates in between. Most of the networks I support are running norton enterprise, which does take care of the client update rollouts for me, so I simply run an update on the servers every morning. (kinda inhibiting at first, but once you develop the habit it just becomes routine... pretty simple). The other problem is reliance on a single package, I prefer to have more than one line of defense, look into a good AV suite for your mailserver, and establish a good proactive "safe pc" policy. Keep your users in check!!!

[Guus]

In Symantec's defense: I'm using Norton Anti Virus 2002, and I seem to receiving new virus definitions the minute they come out, sometimes two, three times a week. I checked just now, and I am using virus definitions of march 21st (today is 24th). I ran liveupdate, and there were no updates pending. Just to make absolutely sure, I checked my settings for updating - they were all on 'default' or 'recommended.'

[Undertaker02]

"I could not possably have a Virus in my puter.. I had "them" put in Nortons when I bought the puter.. 3 Years ago... Nortons is the best.. My Son the plumber is a puter Xpert.he told me so... ".... How many times do we hear this cry? and in the one breath..

[Vorlin]

::rofl:: "My son the plumber..." That's pretty good. Yeah, it seems as if people see the antivirus "working" (icon in tray), it's all taken care of, when in reality, they haven't updated in X number of days/weeks/months. My parents are a glaring example of that. I put together a box for them with NAV 2001 last year and when I went home this year, it hadn't been updated once (mom somehow disabled auto-update?!).

5 minutes of education...just 5 lousy minutes...

[VanEck]

i completely agree with THEJRC. most virus scanners do just what they are supposed to do. they will scan and compare against the virus signatures and attempt to quarantine or delete a file if a possible infection is found. a virus scanner can do no more, no less. it is the users responsiblity, or the admins if it is a network, to make sure that the virus updates are actually up-to-date! otherwise, they serve no purpose other than to provide a fake sense of security. so many people think they are immune to virri simply because they have an antivirus client installed in their system, then are so shocked and dismayed when they find out they are infected a month latter when they actually bother to update and scan.
here at work i have been teaming up with to get a managed norton server in action. all virus updates and scans are now centrallized from two dedicated servers. it pushes down the latest updates on every machine and runs the scans for the users. we have it set for 11:15 everyday. that way most users are at lunch and will not have their work interrupted. the scans take place in the backgrounb but it still uses up resources. on older machines, you really know it is scanning.
as far as personal firewalls go, once again, it is up to the user to stay informed of what protocols should be allowed and what ports should be blocked. in my opinion, it is always a better option to have a dedicated system running a form of *nix to act as your external firewall instead of piece of software running locally. but i suppose it is better than no firewall all together.

[zigar]

it should also be pointed out that

Virus definitions are normally posted to the LiveUpdate servers one time each week , while daily definitions are made available for (optional) manual download using the Intelligent Updater on a daily (Monday to Friday) basis.

http://service2.symantec.com/SUPPORT/sharedtech.nsf/docid/2002021908382713


i always manually dl the intelligent updater files when there's a new epidemic...cause i really don't want to wait until liveupdate gets around to having the most current defs...

http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/download/pages/US-N95.html

notice it's not liveCurrentupdate...

[VictorKaum]

Yep, Zigar I agree, however Norton should speed up their updates, sometimes they don't have files or fixes for a week or so...

[souleman]

I use AVG. Have it set to check for updates daily at 2:00 am. I have gotten new updates I believe the last 5 days in a row....

As far as vulnerablies in NAV firewall....Yes, they do exist. What are they? Go find them.

[politroyx]

If it's new it has always a weakness

[khomotso]

There is also Satellitesafe's technology to make that the user receives his/her updates always and on time.This is a value added system for all AV products.They use satellite technology............. www.satellitesafe.com

[txwebman]

I agree with those in the forum that it is more users fault than anything. Not keeping defintions up to date often enuf is careless or better yet "reckless abandon". I've been on the net for almost 6 years and have been in and out of every nook and dark hole on the net. I've used Norton for at least 4 of the last 6 years and it has never let me down. I'm sure all AV progs have weaknesses but the main one is due to users and not program flaws

[Avid]

hey

Then is the subseven 2.2 (rat) too new
for detection?i beg to differ.
So i think i live update every few hours
and im updated and it did'nt detect the
Intentional download,of the subseven but
it allwats warns me of port attempts by subseven