Friday, January 27, 2012

Reality Catches Up With Symantec


It has happened! I will not lie to you, some part of me is chuckling gleefully. Symantec, the maker of the (in-)famous Norton products recommends to their customers:
“Symantec recommends disabling the product until Symantec releases a final set of software updates that resolve currently known vulnerability risks,” 
This is original text from an online statement released by Symantec about their computers having been hacked back in 2006! Emphasis added by me.

A few things are of interest to me:
  1. They must have known about this for 6 (SIX!) years and kept it a secret.
     
  2. They write "currently known ... risks".
    They knew about the risks all along but did not care to fix them!
     
  3. They ask customers that have paid dearly for the purchase and are paying dearly for updating the software to stop using it altogether with no offer of any compensation at all.
    Pretty arrogant and overbearing if you ask me.
The short of it: I feel very relieved to now have it from the horse's mouth:
Stay far way from everything with a "Norton" label.
And applying my experiences with any other of the big name security suites (read about three examples) I now feel emboldened to say "Stay away from any of them". 

And if you want some more detail go to this FoxNews.com article.


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