Gaping Symantec Antivirus Hole Opens Door for Worms

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Researchers at eEye Digital Security have discovered a flaw in Symantec’s latest versions of its antivirus software, that could allow remote hackers to take complete control of a targeted PC “without any user action.”

“This is definitely wormable. Once exploited, you get a command shell that gives you complete access to the machine. You can remove, edit or destroy files at will,” said eEye Digital Security spokesperson Mike Puterbaugh.

“We have confirmed that an attacker can execute code without the user clicking or opening anything,” Puterbaugh said. Source: eWeek

We Say: This flaw apparently exists only in the Enterprise version of the software, version 10 or higher. As the leader in the antivirus software sector, a flaw in a Symantec product could expose huge numbers of PCs, so the software is an obvious target for hackers. Symantec has not confirmed the flaw yet, but they are investigating. All I can say is, all software has bugs … the question is not if, but how many … so this find is not surprising.