back to article Zero-interaction remote wormable hijack hole blasts Symantec kit

Scores (or thousands, or millions) of enterprise and home Symantec users are open to remote compromise through multiple now-patched (where possible) wormable remote code execution holes described by Google as 'as bad as it gets'. The flaws are "100 percent" reliable against Symantec's Norton Antivirus and Endpoint according to …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another nail in the coffin for Norton Suckurity.

  2. nuked
    Black Helicopters

    Taking the proverbial...

    ****.

    For every disease there is a cure that's 10x worse.

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Symantec has officially hit the bottom

    For years, Symantec's reputation has been going down. Norton has ballooned ever more with bloat, impossible features and what clearly seems to be inefficient/bad coding.

    Now just having Norton installed means you are at risk of being pwned without being able to do anything about it, and practically through no fault of your own.

    You had a waterproof submarine, but Symantec installed a screen door in the back.

    Well, this news won't do anything to Symantec's reputation for me, it was already rock bottom. I'm just wondering if they'll start digging now.

  4. s. pam
    Facepalm

    Serves them right

    Karma's a bitch Symantec and fucking over thousands of employees comes back to bite! Wouldn't be at all surprised that the brainpower that could have averted this got ejected like human hubris at some point in the last several rounds of layoffs.

    I wonder if their Data Center Security and ATP products are affected as well as they use the same engines?

    1. Goopy

      Re: Serves them right

      Yes, of course they are!

  5. leexgx

    this bit was interesting

    "Some of those platforms cannot be upgraded. The many users of pirate copies of Symantec's products would also likely be affected since many cracked applications block update mechanisms."

    never looked at cracking it my self (i get it cheap enough any way)

    i use norton on normal systems that is paid for + other protection

    1. patrickstar

      If you for some reason decide you need an AV, why the hell would you ever pay for one? Avast is free and certainly a lot more effective and less horrible than Norton in all aspects.

      1. Charles 9

        Too noisy and too nagging. I want one that does everything on the QT. None of the free scanners are quiet.

        1. patrickstar

          MSE, or whatever it's called today...?

          1. Charles 9

            Windows Defender, it's now known. And at least it's better than nothing. The closest thing I've found to what I want is ClamAV, but the UI is too clunky and its report format leaves a lot to be desired.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Symantec cripples machine more than a virus

    Mandatory at work (hence AC)

    It degrades performance of my machine far more than a virus / trojan would (as nobody would write a trojan that was such an obvious glutton of cpu, disk I/O as Norton / Symantec as you want a nasty (bar ransomware) to slip under the radar not grab attention).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Symantec cripples machine more than a virus

      Hear Hear

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Auditors

    If I show this to my auditors will they finally let me run my operation without AV? Didn't think so.

    And before I get downvoted, don't think for a minute I don't have other, much more effective, mitigations in place. I haven't trusted AV to stop anything for a long time.

  8. Adam 1
    Coat

    With all these holes, it's a good thing Symantec aren't implicated in any other questionable security practices.

    /I'll grab my coat. I think its the blue one over there.

  9. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Decomposing composers!

    So is this decomposition a furtherance of what we had last month?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Intel protected mode architecture

    Anonymous Coward: "It looks you don't know the Intel protected mode architecture. The issue actually is any OS I know running on Intel - Linux included - doesn't use the protections offered fully." link

    Protection that relies on zero bugs in application software is no protection at all. None of these exploits would be possible if Intel could design a reliable MMU.

    "The Intel ® 64 architecture processors may contain design defects or errors known as errata. Current characterized errata are available on request."

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anti-Anti-virus..

    With Friends like this, who needs Enemies or Anti-Virus...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is this the Symantec

    security experts always trying to fool me into thinking Android was insecure???

    OK then.... About time they got their of their own media medicine..

  13. RudderLessIT

    So, is this still a thing?

    I followed the link to Google and the article includes some pretty damning comments, like "they were using code derived from open source libraries like libmspack and unrarsrc, but hadn’t updated them in at least 7 years"

    But at the very end, there is a line "Thanks to Symantec Security Team for their help resolving these bugs quickly"!

    So, besides a general dislike for Norton, should we still consider their products to be vulnerable?

    1. patrickstar

      Re: So, is this still a thing?

      You can rest fully assured that there are tons of just-as-critical, but yet-not-disclosed-in-public, vulnerabilities in these products (or any other product exposed to untrusted data developed with a similar callous disregard for security)

      1. Charles 9

        Re: So, is this still a thing?

        Callous disregard for security is pretty much the norm these days. Budgets and deadlines take priority because the investors hold the purse strings.

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