Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition vulnerable to flaw

Article

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition vulnerable to flaw

Bill Brenner, Senior News Writer

Attackers could launch malicious code to gain system-level privileges by exploiting a flaw in Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10, Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based eEye Digital Security Inc. has warned in an advisory.

The company

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labeled the security hole "high-severity" and Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec Corp. said it is investigating eEye's findings. Details on the exact nature of the vulnerability were not immediately available.

"This flaw does not require any end-user interaction for exploitation and can compromise affected systems, allowing for the execution of malicious code with system-level access," eEye said in its brief advisory.

In its advisory detailing the AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10 flaw, Symantec said its Norton products "do not contain the code affected by this potential vulnerability, and none of the Norton products are affected by this issue." The company said its product teams are investigating and, if necessary, "we will provide updates for all currently supported products to resolve this issue."

Symantec added that it's not aware of any customers that have been affected by the flaw. "There is no known exploit code currently in the wild that takes advantage of this reported vulnerability," the company said.

For now, Symantec said AntiVirus Corporate Edition customers can mitigate the threat by:

  • Blocking external access at the network boundary, unless external parties require service.
  • Filtering access to the affected computer at the network boundary if global accessibility is not required.
  • Restricting access to only trusted computers and networks.
  • Deploying network intrusion detection systems (IDS) to monitor network traffic for malicious activity.
  • Not accepting or executing files from untrusted or unknown sources.
  • Avoiding the acceptance of or executing files that originate from users of questionable integrity.